The Boston Globe
The Ladder District is looking up
Condos and dorms are making a location into a neighborhood; the Combat Zone has never seemed farther away
By Tina Cassidy, Globe Correspondent | June 11, 2006
For five years it has seemed like the only people who actually lived near Downtown Crossing were the homeless sleeping on park benches or the wealthy in their aeries above the city at the Ritz towers.
But now the area, a quirky mix of fast-food joints, unique small retailers, chains, and B-grade office space, is fast becoming a major residential district, with many of the Manhattan-style lofts that have become so popular in the local condominium market.
Most of the recent focus on the Downtown Crossing area has been on what it is losing -- Filene's from the landmark building at the corner of Winter and Summer streets and the Barnes and Noble store across the street . But those departures mask an astonishing number of arrivals to the neighborhood -- particularly on the narrow parallel streets that empty onto Boston Common, a map grid that gave the area the marketing moniker of the Ladder District.
``It was just a matter of time," said David Greaney , president of Synergy Boston, which is converting two office buildings on Winter and West streets into 39 condos. ``You look at the other three sides of Boston Common and this area has lagged behind. You look at the city's support for a 24/7 neighborhood in [this] area and that support makes it easier to convert property from vacant office space to more desirable residential space. We're really upbeat on the area."
There are other signs of the district's conversion to a neighborhood: It now has a grocery store -- Lambert's Marketplace on the Common opened last week on Tremont Street selling fresh flowers, produce, ethnic breads, gourmet cheese, and deli items -- and a high-end home furnisher. Roche-Bobois, which sells $12,000 sectionals, is opening a store at the corner of Washington and Avery streets.
Two key developements in recent years helped sparked the wave of residential activity in this neighborhood: the nearly $1 billion Ritz project on Avery Street, and just beyond that, Emerson College's decision to relocate student housing and classrooms from its Back Bay locations. Both are located at the edge of the former Combat Zone.
``When you put students in that environment, it's like looking at the future. It pushes it to the next level," said developer Ron Gold, who is converting offices at 10 West St. and the adjacent 515 Washington St. into 73 condos.
Emerson is opening a new dormitory on nearby Boylston Street this fall. The college is also converting the long-closed Paramount Theater on Washington Street to theatrical space and is building a 260-student dormitory behind the facade of the adjacent Arcade building. The project, to be completed around 2009, would house students on upper floors and commercial space, probably a restaurant, on the ground floor, an Emerson spokesman said.
Directly across the street from the Paramount, Millennium Partners-Boston, the developer of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Towers Boston Common, submitted a plan in April to the Boston Redevelopment Authority for 225 loft-style condos with street-level retail on what is now a large parking lot. The apartments would be about 1,200 square feet and cost about $900,000 in today's market, though groundbreaking would not begin until next year -- assuming the city approves the plan.
The two buildings Gold is converting have smallish floor plates and were inefficient as work environments. But he said the spaces make for ``interesting" housing because the various layouts will make the units look less cookie-cutter than new construction. Expected to be completed at the end of the year, Gold has not yet priced the studios and one- and two-bedroom units.
Rainbow, a women's clothing store on the ground floor of the Washington Street address, will be moving out, Gold said, and representatives of upscale restaurants and retailers have expressed interest in taking over the location.
Meanwhile, Greaney's projects include seven recently finished condos above the GNC store at 43 Winter St., and another 32 condos he just started on at 26-30 West St., over the Blaine hair studio.
Three of the two-bedroom condos in the century-old mercantile building at 43 Winter St. -- the project is called Loft 43 -- have already sold; prices have ranged from $699,000 to $899,000. The West Street properties will hit the market in about 18 months, priced between $350,000 and $750,000 and ranging in size from 725 square feet to 1,500 square feet, according to Greaney.
Residential development is also extending beyond the Ladder District . Behind the Lafayette Garage, the Edison, at 42 Chauncy St., discreetly houses 40 condos. And closer to South Station, at 50 Summer St., plans may be in the works to add housing above the Walgreens, according to the BRA. The Abbey Group is also developing a tower with 150 condos on Province Street, where the Littlest Bar was. Construction is expected to be completed around 2008.
And the Filene's store and adjacent building on that block, which city and real estate officials said are in the process of being sold to a New York realty trust, may be redeveloped into a massive mixed-use project that could include luxury condominiums.
City Hall has been a big booster of all this development. The BRA has seven employees working on revitalizing Downtown Crossing, with plans to repair the cobblestones along Winter Street, add planters, make uniform all of the pushcarts, and ensure that vacant storefronts at least display art.
``There will be 1,300 new homes there in the next five years," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in an interview. ``We want a diversity of incomes in the area. We don't want just high-income people. $300,000 to $400,000 units are part of what we're doing. Of course, some think that's exorbitant."
