Opening soon: Dudley Square’s Bolling Building features wealth of architectural details

When the long-dormant former Ferdinand’s furniture store reawakens as the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building next month, Dudley Square will have a gleaming new centerpiece. Set in motion in 2011 by former Mayor Thomas Menino, the redevelopment promises to grace Boston’s geographic center with a sophisticated exterior that knits together historic and contemporary architecture, an airy modern interior and a sixth-floor community space and roof deck with sweeping city views available to Boston School Department employees, visitors and the public.

About 500 employees of the school department and a few other education-related organizations will soon report to work in the new building, with a phased move-in starting sometime in January 2015, according to city officials. The building, whose name honors the first black president of the Boston City Council, will also house the Boston School Committee chambers, the new Roxbury Innovation Center and several ground-floor food and retail businesses.

The $124.9 million, 214,000 square-foot facility encompasses the former Ferdinand’s building with its iconic flatiron “prow” at the corner of Washington and Warren Streets along with the adjacent Curtis and J.S. Waterman Buildings. The redevelopment was designed by Sasaki Associates and the Netherlands-based Mecanoo in collaboration with the City of Boston. The exterior facades of the three historic buildings were painstakingly preserved or restored, leaving pieces of history alongside modern brick-and-glass construction.

Inside, there are further nods to local history and culture. The building’s entrances, one facing Washington Street and the other facing Dudley Station, are aligned with the path of the old elevated orange line, whose inbound trains used to traverse the site. Curving parallel fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling trace a ghost image of the rail tracks. A large wall in the two-story lobby will display a map of Boston that reflects the Dudley area as the city’s center-point, and a photographic display of Dudley Square history is in the works for a sixth-floor community space. Three public art installations will be created by local professional artists Napoleon Jones-Henderson and Meejin Yoon and recent Burke High School alumna Clarita Stephens.

Visitors entering the Bolling building will see a grand staircase with steps crafted of black terrazzo flecked with silver connecting the first two floors of publicly-accessible space. On the second floor, a BPS concierge will be stationed to direct people to the services they seek. Also on the second floor will be the new Roxbury Innovation Center and the Boston School Committee meeting chambers. The high-ceilinged chambers, located in the front corner of the old Ferdinand Building with the familiar oval window looking out onto Washington Street, can double as a space large enough for the superintendent to host meetings with all BPS school principals.

A recent tour of the building’s interior revealed sleek low-walled workspaces in open floor plans where all of the desk workers have access to natural light from tall windows. The whiteness of desks and cabinets contrasts with accent walls of rich green and deep blue-violet. Rolling whiteboards and file cabinets give the place a modular, flexible feel, as if a group of colleagues could gather at any time for a spontaneous brainstorming session.

While the middle floors will be the main BPS workplace and the two top floors are reserved for heating, ventilation and air conditioning machinery, the sixth floor offers a roof deck and enormous windows, providing breathtaking vistas far and wide over the city.

A walk around floor six’s windowed perimeter brings views of the Prudential and Hancock towers, the dual spires of the Mission Church, the Dillaway-Thomas House, the First Parish Church, and Dudley Station close by, with the Fort Hill water tower beyond. Beyond Roxbury is the city’s tall-building financial district skyline, Dorchester Heights, UMass Boston and the Boston Harbor.

The evolution of the Dudley area streetscape is on display from this high vantage point, with the new Area B-2 police station seeming to stand proudly near the site of its recently-demolished former self; the multi-hued Orchard Gardens homes and bright yellow school look new and thriving, while nearby vacant lots lie in waiting to become hubs of new retail and housing.

This sixth floor and its roof deck positioned atop the old Ferdinand Building were the subject of much discussion at community meetings back in 2011 and 2012, when city officials and the design team were presenting initial plans. Community members wanted the public to be able to access these views of the wider city. It appears they will get their wish.

Besides the roof deck furnished with bright blue chairs and tables and wooden benches and surrounded by “green roof” areas of hardy low greenery, the designers included community-accessible multi-purpose indoor space. Included here is the room that will hold rotating historical displays as well as a function area with a kitchen that could be used for meetings and celebratory gatherings. It is not yet clear how people would arrange to use the indoor space, but a city spokesperson confirmed that the roof deck will be freely accessible to the public.

Polished as it is so far, the building is still a work in progress. In mid-December, workers could be seen above, adjusting the colored LED lights that illuminate the building’s upper floors at night, and below, constructing the concrete plaza area near the station-facing entrance. The ceremonial ribbon-cutting is still unscheduled and likely won’t occur until at least late February.

The final tally of local, minority and female construction work-hours will likely indicate the project met some goals but fell slightly short on others. And the ground-floor retail is behind earlier projections, with businesses now expected to open weeks or months later than the BPS employee move-in. But when the last pieces fall into place, the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building will without doubt stand tall as a monument to both the history and the future of a city and community. Mayor Menino, one imagines, would be proud.