The state wants to redo the Hurley Building. But how?
To some, the Charles F. Hurley Building is a giant concrete tombstone, memorializing a once-vibrant city block buried by urban renewal.
For others, it’s a historic treasure, a throwback to a grandiose, monolithic style of architecture.
To the Baker administration, the three-plus-acre Hurley property along Cambridge and Staniford streets could be something else entirely: a financial windfall.
As the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance entertains several private-sector bids for the Hurley, the offers remain under wraps. The administration has multiple goals for this redevelopment: consolidating downtown state offices, breaking up this vast “superblock” to make it pedestrian-friendly, and modernizing a property that has fallen into disrepair.