7INK (née Ollie) | 217 Albany St | South End

kz1000ps said:
Wow, I figured you had ventured off into hyperbole land but first thing I see in that matterport is a toilet separated from the main living space by a curtain.... a crapper curtain. Down with human dignity!
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This was my only real gripe, to be honest. In an American context I can understand that this is a tight space for someone likely pulling in high five figures. But by Japanese standards, if you gave the WC a pocket door, you'd have a decent 1LDK that would run for about USD 1200-1500 a month (in Tokyo).
 
shawn said:
This was my only real gripe, to be honest. In an American context I can understand that this is a tight space for someone likely pulling in high five figures. But by Japanese standards, if you gave the WC a pocket door, you'd have a decent 1LDK that would run for about USD 1200-1500 a month (in Tokyo).
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I definitely got Asian/Japanese/Tokyo vibes from them, but there's a number of little/big details that leave me scratching my head, like the toilet or this wall... they seriously couldn't have put the breaker panel somewhere slightly more out of the way?

51683203996_482da75a96_b.jpg
 
If I graduated from Harvard (etc), and got a job in finance at 22 pulling 120 at Bain (etc), I might think this a great idea. Crypto, sure! Im going to pull 80 hour weeks, for starters. Secondly, the only furniture I have is none, and I've lived in dorm rooms since I was 12.

So I can walk to work and bank serious cash for a year or 3. By the time I'm 28 I'll have a Porsche and a boat and a downpayment for my new home in Concord.

There is a market for this, however small. And these people (the geeks) are taking over the world. Elon Musk lives in a prefab trailer folks...
 
[QUOTE="Cortes, post: 414600, member: …… Elon Musk lives in a prefab trailer folks...
[/QUOTE]

……where his body will be found some morning in 2023.
 
^ This all makes sense for the location, except for the billboard? (Well, the billboard makes sense on its own, but not in combination with the building!)
 
I believe the billboard is there to stay. From an April 2019 Boston Civic Design Commission meeting:

> Commission member: Why did you choose to relocate the billboard onsite?
> Developer: We were able to negotiate the long-term lease of the billboard to some extent, but we can’t build a building without replacing it.

(emphasis mine)

So we know that the billboard has to remain in some capacity on the property for the foreseeable future, and I don't see any other place to trivially relocate the billboard within the timeframe of the building's opening in a month or two. Pretty strong evidence that it will remain where it is, IMO.
 
I don’t see why they can’t relocate it to the roof, once the building is completed.
 
RandomWalk said:
I don’t see why they can’t relocate it to the roof, once the building is completed.
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I was thinking that, but it would need to be much larger than it currently is to have the same visibility to cars passing by on I93. Building a structure on the roof to accommodate a much larger billboard seems like a fairly major construction undertaking at a point this late in the build process. Furthermore, the building is supposed to have a roof deck, which would likely be impacted by any roof-mounted billboards. I assume the developer's calculus is that it's better to completely (ink)block the view of a few units than to worsen the quality of the roof deck for everyone; after all, communal amenities are a big selling point of these co-living spaces.
 
The groundfloor along Albany/frontage rd whatever it is, is actually fairly solid but the rest of it is Hall of Shame worthy.
 
BeeLine said:
IMG_3135 by Bos Beeline, on Flickr
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I know I'm not exactly going against the grain with this opinion, but this is totally f***ing nuts. Goofy on its face. If I was being shown one of these units and looked out the window to see this, I would laugh myself out of the building. I understand they were restricted in some way and there's good discussion in the previous couple posts about issues with alternative placement, but this surely seems like the obviously wrong move.
 
MjolnirMan said:
I know I'm not exactly going against the grain with this opinion, but this is totally f***ing nuts. Goofy on its face. If I was being shown one of these units and looked out the window to see this, I would laugh myself out of the building. I understand they were restricted in some way and there's good discussion in the previous couple posts about issues with alternative placement, but this surely seems like the obviously wrong move.
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I'm confident the revenue from the billboard outweighed the increased vacancy/lower rents from the units behind it when they completed the feasibility studies. However ignorant this looks, there was careful consideration to the bottom line and a little too much confidence in the Boston housing market for demand for units like this. I won't undermine any of what you said though, I feel the exact same about the ridiculousness of this.
 
Brownie14 said:
FWIW there is a large sign at the roof level, even if it is advertising for the building itself. But it doesn't make the billboard any less crazy
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Going back to the render in the first post of this thread, is that ad in the location implied to be the relocated digital billboard?
1647014151014.png
 
Brick Top said:
I believe the billboard is there to stay. From an April 2019 Boston Civic Design Commission meeting:

> Commission member: Why did you choose to relocate the billboard onsite?
> Developer: We were able to negotiate the long-term lease of the billboard to some extent, but we can’t build a building without replacing it.

(emphasis mine)

So we know that the billboard has to remain in some capacity on the property for the foreseeable future, and I don't see any other place to trivially relocate the billboard within the timeframe of the building's opening in a month or two. Pretty strong evidence that it will remain where it is, IMO.
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Curiosity got the better of me, and I asked the developer about the billboard. They confirmed that there are no plans to remove it!
 
Wow! I sure hope those apartments with the billboard view are getting a price reduction for "Obscured View" tickets!
 
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