The Bon | 1260 Boylston Street | Fenway

Scape has given up on its plans to build dorms and now plans on building general apartments instead.

www.bostonglobe.com

Dorm developer changes $1b project in the Fenway — to 1,300 regular apartments - The Boston Globe

The British company that was going to bring privately run dorms to Boston? It’s building market-rate apartments instead.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Boston Globe said:
Scape will revamp its plan for a building at 1252 Boylston St., initially intended to hold 533 residents in dormitory-style rooms, and to accommodate 477 open-market apartments, in a mix of sizes.

Another site it controls, at 819 Beacon St., would feature 445 market-rate apartments, plus “Corey House” — 50 units of patient-family housing in partnership with Children’s hospital.

A third project, the site of the Trans National Building at 2 Charlesgate West, would become a tower about 14 stories tall, with 220 affordable-housing units. The lower would be floors set aside for housing run by one of the nearby hospitals or universities.

Flynn expects that the three buildings, 1,357 units in all, will cost about $600 million to build, with rents for market-rate units starting at around $1,600 for a 300-square-foot studio. Scape USA plans to deliver them furnished, as a way to lower occupancy costs for residents. The company owns a large site in Somerville’s Davis Square, as well, and is planning a similar approach there.
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JumboBuc said:
Scape has given up on its plans to build dorms and now plans on building general apartments instead.

www.bostonglobe.com

Dorm developer changes $1b project in the Fenway — to 1,300 regular apartments - The Boston Globe

The British company that was going to bring privately run dorms to Boston? It’s building market-rate apartments instead.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
Click to expand...

Tim Logan reasonably speculates on Twitter if this was more about a softening of international student demand for the US than the zoning rules.

That said, the zoning rules are still ageist, discriminatory BS.
 
JumboBuc said:
Scape has given up on its plans to build dorms and now plans on building general apartments instead.

www.bostonglobe.com

Dorm developer changes $1b project in the Fenway — to 1,300 regular apartments - The Boston Globe

The British company that was going to bring privately run dorms to Boston? It’s building market-rate apartments instead.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
Click to expand...

Strange move for Scape. I'm not aware of any other properties they maintain like this.

Also, they previously mentioned an initially investment of $1 billion, and this says in total everything will cost $600 million. More to come? Or a step down from the initial statement?
 
stefal said:
Strange move for Scape. I'm not aware of any other properties they maintain like this.

Also, they previously mentioned an initially investment of $1 billion, and this says in total everything will cost $600 million. More to come? Or a step down from the initial statement?
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The $600 million is for the Boston developments only. The article also highlights their Davis Square (Somerville) outlook and other future announcements. The only step down appears to be in the unit count for the Boylston Street property.

I wrote a comment reply on the Globe comment thread for this article to someone claiming there was "zero chance" Scape will charge $1,600/month for a furnished studio. Compared to the the studios we've actually seen come online, I think Scape's math passes a sniff test (even if this is still 3 years out most likely).

Most of the new studios constructed citywide have been 500-550 square feet, and priced around $2,500/month. That translates to a rent of about $4.54 to $5 per square foot per month.

A 300 square foot studio priced at $1,600/month translates to about $5.33 per square foot per month.

Accounting for construction costs, affordable housing demand, and what the building code allows for, I am surprised the development of micro-units and smaller apartments has not dominated the share of new projects proposed citywide. On a pro forma, developers stand to make more money per square foot on such units than on traditional 1, 2, and 2+ bedroom units.
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1,300 regular apartments it states ... I cant see the full article, but that seems like quite a lot of units.
 
1300 units? I have a hard time seeing that gettng through the neighborhood approval...
 
Is 1300 units a collection of all 3 properties?
 
cjbski said:
Is 1300 units a collection of all 3 properties?
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Yeah, the breakdown is right there in the quote.
Boston Globe said:
Scape will revamp its plan for a building at 1252 Boylston St., initially intended to hold 533 residents in dormitory-style rooms, and to accommodate 477 open-market apartments, in a mix of sizes.

Another site it controls, at 819 Beacon St., would feature 445 market-rate apartments, plus “Corey House” — 50 units of patient-family housing in partnership with Children’s hospital.

A third project, the site of the Trans National Building at 2 Charlesgate West, would become a tower about 14 stories tall, with 220 affordable-housing units. The lower would be floors set aside for housing run by one of the nearby hospitals or universities.

Flynn expects that the three buildings, 1,357 units in all, will cost about $600 million to build, with rents for market-rate units starting at around $1,600 for a 300-square-foot studio. Scape USA plans to deliver them furnished, as a way to lower occupancy costs for residents. The company owns a large site in Somerville’s Davis Square, as well, and is planning a similar approach there.
Click to expand...

1252 Boylston St: 477 market-rate apartments
819 Beacon St: 445 market-rate apartments plus 50 units of patient-family housing in partnership with Children’s hospital.
2 Charlesgate West: 220 affordable-housing units plus [165 (calculated)] units run by one of the nearby hospitals or universities.

Thus, 1,357 total units
 
All I saw was a 300 sq ft studio apartment. 300. square. feet. That is terrifyingly small. I once lived in an alcove studio that was close to 600 sq ft. I can't imagine that being 2 apartments.
 
If it's not student housing anymore, it would be nice if they did more for a Machine replacement than "LGBT theater space"... Boston's gay scene is oozing with demand and it's only going to get worse when Machine closes.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
All I saw was a 300 sq ft studio apartment. 300. square. feet. That is terrifyingly small. I once lived in an alcove studio that was close to 600 sq ft. I can't imagine that being 2 apartments.
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When I was a single 23-year-old graduating Northeastern, I lived in a Victorian, 300 sq. ft. alcove studio on the corner of St. Botolph and Blackwood Streets in Back Bay for $1450/month, all utilities included. I was able to accommodate up to 7 friends comfortably for game nights and Oscar parties, and was within a 10-minute bike ride of literally everything. Of the dozen places I’ve lived across Greater Boston, that ranks among the top three best.

A 300 square foot apartment is not terrifyingly small for a single professional working in Boston—it’s reasonable, practical, and (sadly) in very short supply.
 
I could make 300 sq ft work. I really just need a bed and desk space for my multiple computers. Between my current bedroom and home office I'm not working with much more than 300 sqft as it is. I rarely go into the living room except to get to the kitchen and I don't cook much either.

I wouldn't go for a shared bathroom though.

I think there's a market out there for this. Now whether I would put up with this in Boston instead of say NYC... I dunno, but I'm getting tired of Boston.
 
meddlepal said:
I could make 300 sq ft work. I really just need a bed and desk space for my multiple computers. Between my current bedroom and home office I'm not working with much more than 300 sqft as it is. I rarely go into the living room except to get to the kitchen and I don't cook much either.

I wouldn't go for a shared bathroom though.

I think there's a market out there for this. Now whether I would put up with this in Boston instead of say NYC... I dunno, but I'm getting tired of Boston.
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Yeah, your average 1LDK Tokyo apartment is between 25 and 30 sq meters, so basically 300 sq feet. When built with space savings / multi-usage in mind, 300 sq feet for one person is fine. I did it for years and never felt cramped, and I had an in-unit washer-dryer and a sweet Japanese bath setup - the toilet gets its own room. I was paying JPY 110,000 a month for that in a good central neighborhood five minutes from the subway (about USD 1000). Utilities not included, but fire and earthquake coverage was.
 
George_Apley said:
If it's not student housing anymore, it would be nice if they did more for a Machine replacement than "LGBT theater space"... Boston's gay scene is oozing with demand and it's only going to get worse when Machine closes.
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That would be great, but it's never going to happen. This city will continue to grow more boring every year.

Look to the Seaport. That is the future.
 
GW said:
That would be great, but it's never going to happen. This city will continue to grow more boring every year.

Look to the Seaport. That is the future.
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Put me in the camp that doesn't think a Machine replacement is totally off the table. Maybe not at this parcel, but somewhere in the Fenway. Putting a nightclub like Machine in the B1 level of a new development (think: DTX Roche Bros) seems like a pretty great use of space to me.

Also, this is 100% off-topic, but has there ever been a period of time when the Seaport was less boring than it is now? I'd say no. On the whole, there is more interesting cultural stuff going on the Seaport than ever before. New development doesn't make a city boring, displacement in existing buildings does. Your issue should be with the yuppification of existing buildings in, e.g., JP and Cambridge, not with new buildings in, e.g., the Seaport.
 
JumboBuc said:
Put me in the camp that doesn't think a Machine replacement is totally off the table. Maybe not at this parcel, but somewhere in the Fenway. Putting a nightclub like Machine in the B1 level of a new development (think: DTX Roche Bros) seems like a pretty great use of space to me.

Also, this is 100% off-topic, but has there ever been a period of time when the Seaport was less boring than it is now? I'd say no. On the whole, there is more interesting cultural stuff going on the Seaport than ever before. New development doesn't make a city boring, displacement in existing buildings does. Your issue should be with the yuppification of existing buildings in, e.g., JP and Cambridge, not with new buildings in, e.g., the Seaport.
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They are part of the same process; the same forces are at work. The Seaport wasn't much of anything, in terms of residents, before recent development, so I don't think that's an apt comparison. My point was that the rest of the city is coming to resemble the Seaport demographically, "culturally" (such as it is), and in many cases architecturally. I'm not sure what cultural stuff you're referring to, but the yuppification you point to in JP and Cambridge is, to my eyes, pretty much all there is at the Seaport.

I'm less optimistic than you are about a Machine replacement, but I hope you're right. That, too, just looks like another example of a continuing trend.
 
Scape is changing this project in technical terms only. Is anybody naive enough to think once built it wont be packed with undergrads anyway? They're just appeasing the neighborhood but not actually doing anything different.
 
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