Margulies Perruzzi named CA for Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum

Margulies Perruzzi Architects has been selected for construction documentation and administration for the new Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum in the Fort Point Channel neighborhood. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum was a popular tourist destination in Boston before it was struck by lightning and burned down in 2001. Subsequently, a new museum was designed by McManus Peterman Architects, now McManus Architects. Margulies Perruzzi Architects has been asked to see that design through construction for Historic Tours of America. The new Tea Party project is being developed by Historic Tours of America together with Boston Properties, who is providing development management services. The project is being funded through a loan from the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, a grant from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and a capital investment by Historic Tours of America. Margulies Perruzzi Architects was selected to provide construction documentation and administration services for the project, which includes a 9,600 s/f museum to be built on a pier off Congress St. as well as the historical replicas of the three Tea Party ships - the Eleanor, the Brig Beaver, and the Dartmouth - to be permanently docked next to it. The ticket booth, gift shop/bookstore, and main orientation spaces of the museum will sit on a pier attached to the Congress St. Bridge, and "gangways" from the pier will lead visitors to the floating barge that will house the exhibits of the museum on the first floor and an 18th Century tavern on the second floor. The three ships will be arrayed around the barge. Construction on the project is anticipated to start in February 2011, and the museum is expected to open in spring of 2012. Historic Tours of America, Inc. is an entertainment company which provides historically oriented vacation experiences for guests through the operation of trolleys, street trains, high speed ferry, themed retail stores, festival marketplaces and other historic tourist attractions in Key West, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; San Diego, California; Savannah, Georgia; Washington DC and St. Augustine, Florida. McManus Peterman Architects, now McManus Architects, designed the new Tea Party Museum. WSP/Flack & Kurtz is providing mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering consulting, and Weidlinger Associates is providing structural engineering services. Childs Engineering is consulting on the pilings and barge design, and Lerch Bates is providing elevator design. Hughes Associates are the code consultants. Nitsch Engineering is providing civil engineering services.