The New Residential Conversion Thread

dames said:
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"......Hanley added that while he has no guess how much the market-rate units will go far, they will not be marketed, or priced, as the sort of luxury units that have gone up in large numbers over in the Seaport a few blocks away. "There's a lot of luxury housing" in the area, but not a lot of units aimed at people who make too much for "affordable" units but not enough for buildings with high-end amenities, he said....."

God bless you, Mr Hanley.
 
Yes, please.
From the Globe:

"A block-long Back Bay office that was once New England’s largest building is set to become Boston’s largest office-to-residential conversion project.

Vanbarton Group, a New York real estate firm, this month applied to create up to 490 apartments at 31 St. James Ave. The 11-story, 540,000-square-foot property, known as the Park Square Building, stretches a full block between Arlington and Berkeley streets. If approved, the project would cost up to $410 million and be by far Boston’s largest office to residential conversion to date."
 
Wow, this would be incredible. For those who don't go down that side of Back Bay this building is HUGE and adds a great street wall along with the other pre-war buildings like the old Hancock. This is a quiet little part of Back Bay that's always pretty empty except for Grill 23, precisely because there isn't much housing between The Clarendon and Bay Village. Really exciting proposal.

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dames said:
would cost up to $410 million and be by far Boston’s largest office to residential conversion to date."
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410 mill just for the conversion cost for 490 apartments? And they said the luxury market was dead.

Granted, Back Bay.
 
Wow. My first job after college many, many years ago was in the Park Square Building.
 
dames said:
Yes, please.
From the Globe:

"A block-long Back Bay office that was once New England’s largest building is set to become Boston’s largest office-to-residential conversion project.

Vanbarton Group, a New York real estate firm, this month applied to create up to 490 apartments at 31 St. James Ave. The 11-story, 540,000-square-foot property, known as the Park Square Building, stretches a full block between Arlington and Berkeley streets. If approved, the project would cost up to $410 million and be by far Boston’s largest office to residential conversion to date."
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Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please find a way to boot Fire & Ice so that it goes and dies a small unremarked upon death in the corner. How the ^$^$#%#! does that place stay in business?!?

It's THE most cringe, awkward dining concept devised by humankind... "none of you will be eating at the same time because you'll all be cooking your food at various intervals/durations and thus there will be no pleasant conversation/shared experience and everything will be rushed frenetic and chaotic."

What's not to hate?
 
There's like 5 consulates in this building, the spanish one that I go to is located in a tiny, low ceiling, drop tile room down an empty hallway clearly being the only occupied unit on the floor so its nice to see it being converted.
 
The full Globe article has more detail on this: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/11/business/boston-back-bay-conversion/?event=event12

The building has struggled financially since the pandemic and in April sold at foreclosure for $96 million to LNR Partners, a Miami-based subsidiary of commercial real estate giant Starwood Property Trust. That $96 million almost matches its mortgage from two decades ago, property records show, though it’s a far cry from the $160 million mortgage New York’s Capital Properties Management took out in 2017. It’s also 19 percent less than the property’s assessed value, which itself is down 33 percent in the past four fiscal years.
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Assuming the new owner didn't take on any legacy debt, $96 million purchase price + $410 million in reno costs for 490 apartments and 30k sf of ground floor retail in the heart of the Back Bay -- plus all the tax incentives of residential conversions -- sounds like a pretty solid business plan. That also looks much better on paper than a new build would be (say, the Motor Mart Tower one block over) with much less risk as well.
 
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Another notable data point from the article: "In Boston, developers have proposed converting some 2 million square feet of underutilized office space into residential projects. Less than 20 percent of the 2,331 units proposed for conversion have been built or are under construction."

Goes to show that our office to resi conversion "boom" is still mainly conceptual, not a reality for the market.
 
DBM said:
Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please find a way to boot Fire & Ice so that it goes and dies a small unremarked upon death in the corner. How the ^$^$#%#! does that place stay in business?!?

It's THE most cringe, awkward dining concept devised by humankind... "none of you will be eating at the same time because you'll all be cooking your food at various intervals/durations and thus there will be no pleasant conversation/shared experience and everything will be rushed frenetic and chaotic."

What's not to hate?
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College kids love it. They've found a market and they've owned it for 20ish years.

So call it a scrappy food experience but its more successful than 90% of restaurants.
 
curcuas said:
I hope they keep Bacco around. The interior hall full of little shops was great before the pandemic.
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I used to go to this building in the 90s for lunch. There were a couple of great lunch places in there. The interior hallway was so long and it was quite busy at lunch time. Kind of sad to hear that the vitality withered away after Covid.
 
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commuter guy said:
I used to go to this building in the 90s for lunch. There were a couple of great lunch places in there. The interior hallway was so long and it was quite busty at lunch time. Kind of sad to hear that the vitality withered away after Covid.
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I was a regular at the Souper Salad in those days, and also enjoyed walking through the "mall" between Arlington and Berkeley as part of my regular commute.
 
I wonder why they would have even taken that off in the first place. Maintenance costs or something?
 
DBM said:
It's THE most cringe, awkward dining concept devised by humankind... "none of you will be eating at the same time because you'll all be cooking your food at various intervals/durations and thus there will be no pleasant conversation/shared experience and everything will be rushed frenetic and chaotic."
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Don't forget "please select your sauces so we can douse your meat and veggies so you cannot taste them anymore." Place was awful 25 years ago when it opened!
 
BosDevelop said:
Don't forget "please select your sauces so we can douse your meat and veggies so you cannot taste them anymore." Place was awful 25 years ago when it opened!
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It's consistently at capacity and keeps folks employed and customers happy. I don't like Cheesecake Factory (bleagh) but to each their own.
 
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