Hub developers Samuels & Associates and Weiner Ventures got a green light from the state to build a $360 million residential, hotel and retail project over the Mass Pike — big plans in the Back Bay that could get even bigger.
The real estate firms won a lengthy competition for two key air-rights parcels with twin developments that promise to raise cash for taxpayers and transform the intersection of Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue.
"It really fills in part of the Back Bay that really, simply put, needs to be filled in," developer Adam Weiner said yesterday after the Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced its selection. "It really needs more energy and greater vibrancy."
With the state-owned sites all but secured, the Samuels/Weiner team will pursue an adjacent air-rights parcel owned by insurance giant Prudential Financial to extend the development farther down the block. Prudential had teamed with losing bidder Chiafaro Co. on a 29-story office tower on its parcel and the state-owned Parcel 15.
Meanwhile, according to sources familiar with the situation, Samuels/Weiner are working on a deal to buy a Dalton Street parking garage, across from the Hynes Convention Center, where the development could expand even more.
Onetime air-rights bidder Carpenter & Co. of Cambridge dropped out of the running last summer after failing to make a deal with garage owner Pilgrim Parking. Carpenter had planned a 16-story office tower on the site, next to a 200-room hotel.
Weiner declined comment about a garage deal. He noted a Prudential executive said during a community meeting that the company would "act accordingly" with whichever developer is designated.
"We look forward to having conversations with them," Weiner said. "The project doesn't depend on it, but obviously it seems to be a natural (extension)."
A Prudential spokesman declined comment. Ted Oatis, co-founder of the Chiofaro Co., said the developer "would welcome the opportunity to work contemporaneously" with the Samuels/Weiner team.
MassDOT is finalizing a 99-year lease with initial payments of $18.5 million from the developers. State transportation chief Richard Davey said the Samuels/Weiner proposal "provides the best overall value and long-term benefit to the city of Boston."
The project, subject to city permitting, calls for a 32-story hotel and residential tower across Parcel 15 and a St. Cecilia Street parcel the developers bought from the Archdiocese of Boston for nearly $14 million in 2008 — with the development in mind all along.
On Parcel 12, an L-shaped structure would include a mid-rise residential building along Boylston and a two-story retail building over the Pike along Mass. Ave., capitalizing on nearby Newbury Street's posh shopping district.
The two sites total 230 residential units, a 270-room hotel and 50,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. It was the consensus favorite of a powerful Back Bay citizens advisory committee that reviewed all of the plans.
"Covering up the Mass Pike will knit the Back Bay together," said Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, who served on the panel. "We think the hotel is going to be very exciting. This is the hottest hotel market in Boston, and right next to (the Hynes) is an ideal site."
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