99 A Street | South Boston

Well they proposed it with less parking before so it clearly wasn’t a problem. Boomers man...
 

Alexandria's proposed lab site in Southie sold at a loss​


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“The transaction marks Alexandria’s latest retreat on an investment it made in Greater Boston when the lab market was in a stronger place.”

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...loper-sells-more-southie-sites-at-a-loss.html

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Alexandria Sells Southie Lab Development Site​

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“Alexandria Real Estate Equities has sold a group of South Boston parcels along West Third & A Street to Verndale, a digital experience agency, for $13.35M. Alexandria & Anchor Line had submitted plans for a 200,000+ square-foot life science project on the site back in 2019. The firms acquired the parcels in 2018 for $31M.”

https://www.bldup.com/posts/alexandria-sells-southie-lab-development-site
 
Can that great location be re-envisioned for residential???????
 
An 18m loss??? When everything else has increased in value? Did they get swindled up front or are they broke? That's WILD.
 
DZH22 said:
This is a good article about lab space in Boston. It's over-saturated.

www.bostonglobe.com

The Boston area built a ton of lab space. Now many of those buildings are opening empty. - The Boston Globe

The region's supply of life science real estate exploded just as the once-booming industry hit a slow patch. Now what?
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
Click to expand...
Absolutely. This forum crew could have called it. So like, pivot... the city is giving tax breaks for residential conversion. Unless they desperately needed that capital, an 18m hit in southie real estate over that period is like insane.
 
They never built the lab building so there’s nothing to convert. It was pure speculation without a shovel in the ground, and Alexandria has made billions by building similar lab spaces. They just got out over their skis and are taking an absolute bath right now. Take a look at their stock performance, and for a bonus compare it to the S&P over the same period. Better to take an impairment now than to spend 2 years and millions more building something that won’t be leased for 10 years.

Even in Boston real estate the market is an efficient and vicious mistress.


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DZH22 said:
This is a good article about lab space in Boston. It's over-saturated.

www.bostonglobe.com

The Boston area built a ton of lab space. Now many of those buildings are opening empty. - The Boston Globe

The region's supply of life science real estate exploded just as the once-booming industry hit a slow patch. Now what?
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
Click to expand...
Good article, but totally to be expected.

In every real estate cycle the hot sector gets overbuilt. Bubbles are a fundamental design aspect of capitalist economic cycles. People always pile onto hot sectors too late to get out before the bubble bursts. It is human nature for speculative investing.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Good article, but totally to be expected.

In every real estate cycle the hot sector gets overbuilt. Bubbles are a fundamental design aspect of capitalist economic cycles. People always pile onto hot sectors too late to get out before the bubble bursts. It is human nature for speculative investing.
Click to expand...
^Exactly this. This reaction to the lab boom / oversupply should be "yup," not "oh my gosshhhh, I TOLD you they were building too many labs!"
The players all knew this was going to happen too - it was not a question of whether the over-supply would happen, it was going to be a question of who got their horse out before the barn door closed. These developers are horse racers, and they're well aware of the game they're playing. In this case, the price of a trapped horse in southie is $18m.
 
Justbuildit said:
They never built the lab building so there’s nothing to convert. It was pure speculation without a shovel in the ground, and Alexandria has made billions by building similar lab spaces. They just got out over their skis and are taking an absolute bath right now. Take a look at their stock performance, and for a bonus compare it to the S&P over the same period. Better to take an impairment now than to spend 2 years and millions more building something that won’t be leased for 10 years.

Even in Boston real estate the market is an efficient and vicious mistress.
Click to expand...

I agree, but I didn't write "convert". I wrote "re-envisioned" i.e. change the plan to something that is actually NEEDED. I know Alexandria does only offices/labs, but is there any chance they sell the property to a residential builder? Given the link to the biz side you included, I'm guessing that they probably will pull a Filenes 2000's and keep it an empty gap for 10 year strategy until new lab demand comes back - - - but the team I root for is the City, not the stock of some out of towners .....and I can always hope.
 
Respectfully, I wasn’t responding to your comment. It was in response to Gunner immediately above me. His question was whether Alexandria could take advantage of the residential conversion program, and my point was nothing was built there yet.

I also don’t really care whether Alexandria succeeds or fails, but they’ve already sold the parcel to a new developer at a huge loss, so let’s see what kind of project will pencil for Verndale. Maybe they’ll use the existing space for their offices, who knows. Residential would be great but I doubt a “digital experience agency(?!)” will get into residential real estate development.
 
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