15-25 Harrison Ave | Chinatown

sampan.org

25-Story Hotel Plan Draws Critical Reviews - Sampan

A proposal to raze a vacant and dilapidated building in Chinatown to build a 25-story hotel has sparked a debate over whether the project will further boost housing prices around the neighborhood and exacerbate congestion in the already crowded block. The building’s owner, Sing Ming Chan, claims...
sampan.org sampan.org
Some current and former residents said they felt the proposed hotel does not fit with the character of Chinatown and most whom Sampan spoke with said they were opposed to it. Most said they had friends and family who already had to leave the neighborhood because of new luxury developments and getting priced out.
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themissinglink said:
sampan.org

25-Story Hotel Plan Draws Critical Reviews - Sampan

A proposal to raze a vacant and dilapidated building in Chinatown to build a 25-story hotel has sparked a debate over whether the project will further boost housing prices around the neighborhood and exacerbate congestion in the already crowded block. The building’s owner, Sing Ming Chan, claims...
sampan.org sampan.org
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I dont understand the correlation they're trying to make between building a hotel and rent prices going up. Maybe Im wrong but I dont see how one influences the other here. We should make them have to prove the claims that are made. Especially when theyre being cited as the reasons why they are trying to block a proposal. You should have to bring receipts and evidence if your claims are to be submitted to the record and then used to influence a decision like in court. If they cant be substantiated they get thrown out and cant be used.
 
stick n move said:
I dont understand the correlation they're trying to make between building a hotel and rent prices going up. Maybe Im wrong but I dont see how one influences the other here. We should make them have to prove the claims that are made. Especially when theyre being cited as the reasons why they are trying to block a proposal. You should have to bring receipts and evidence if your claims are to be submitted to the record and then used to influence a decision like in court. If they cant be substantiated they get thrown out and cant be used.
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Limited space to build in the city.

Take this same footprint and height, and make it housing rather then hotel rooms.

Which does the city need more - housing to hotel rooms?
 
JeffDowntown said:
Limited space to build in the city.

Take this same footprint and height, and make it housing rather then hotel rooms.

Which does the city need more - housing to hotel rooms?
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That is true but the argument that the nimbys are making is not that they should build housing here instead of a hotel, theyre saying in the article that the hotel will cause land speculation and for luxury housing to start going up in response, so they want to kill this project altogether and that will somehow prevent luxury housing from going up in the area. The point I was saying is just that whether they are able to block this parcel from being developed or not the few parcels left in downtown are going to be luxury housing regardless. Them killing this project wont stop that like they say.
 
stick n move said:
That is true but the argument that the nimbys are making is not that they should build housing here instead of a hotel, theyre saying in the article that the hotel will cause land speculation and for luxury housing to start going up in response, so they want to kill this project altogether and that will somehow prevent luxury housing from going up in the area. The point I was saying is just that whether they are able to block this parcel from being developed or not the few parcels left in downtown are going to be luxury housing regardless. Them killing this project wont stop that like they say.
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Agreed that the argument being made does not hold together.

But every site in the city is a tradeoff of use potential. We have high hotel rates and we have high rents. So support of a given use here is a vote against the alternative use.
 
curcuas said:
No shame and not a lick of sense in the article and the comments. People who want to live in a low demand suburb should move to Akron.
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I don’t understand the straight line where this is going to cause displacement. I mean, it’s an abandoned building, right? Like we’re only go to displace rats. If it was a housing development being replaced, I could totally understand, but there’s no direct nexus between these things. It’s a bit frustrating that the media just accepts “It’s going to cause displacement” at face value.
 
Smuttynose said:
I don’t understand the straight line where this is going to cause displacement. I mean, it’s an abandoned building, right? Like we’re only go to displace rats. If it was a housing development being replaced, I could totally understand, but there’s no direct nexus between these things. It’s a bit frustrating that the media just accepts “It’s going to cause displacement” at face value.
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The idea is that if the lot is not used for housing, that means less housing in Chinatown. Like all of Boston, Chinatown has a housing shortage, largely driven by the gobbling up of housing for highways and institutions (Tufts Medical Center) over decades. In effect the displacement has already happened, but this location could reverse some of that if it were housing.

Chinatown residents have something of a chip on their shoulder about developments that benefit the City writ large, but always at the expense of Chinatown residents. Big chunks of historical Chinatown have been carved off for I-93, I-90 and the Tufts Medical Center complex.
 
Not to be too pedantic about it, but this building failing to become housing means there will be exactly the same number of housing units as there were before. The merits of hotel vs housing are worth a discussion, and there should be additional efforts to add capacity in places like Chinatown, but this is a literally burnt out building where someone sees value in investing millions to bring a hotel to a part of the city where there are few.

To put it another way, stopping this project will do nothing to cure the housing issues in Chinatown, and may dissuade future developers from wanting to do business in the area. The solution is upzoning with strong affordability requirements so that new market rate and affordable units can get added to inventory. I don't get the sense that's what the residents want.
 
Not specific to this development but relevant to the broader conversation on Chinatown:

www.bostonglobe.com

Boston wants to revamp Chinatown zoning. Will it be enough to blunt gentrification? - The Boston Globe

The proposed changes would preserve its historic row houses, and also remove rules that once gave birth to the Combat Zone, Boston's former adult entertainment district.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

The proposal looks to better protect the neighborhood’s historic row houses — symbols of Chinatown’s working class, which now faces displacement — by capping how tall developments can be in part of the district. Residents have fought to preserve the affordability and character of those structures, saying they are integral to the area’s cultural fabric, one of the last untouched pockets of a neighborhood roiled by development.

Under the plan, the maximum height of projects would be 45 feet, down from the current 80 feet. (Chinatown’s row houses tend to be three to four stories in height.) Other restrictions, according to the city, would help ensure new buildings “would be of similar size and scale to the existing row houses” in a certain subdistrict of Chinatown.

“We find that to be a positive change,” said Müge Ündemir, director of real estate for Asian Community Development Corporation, of the city’s zoning approach to the row houses.

Other parts of the rezoning initiative are being met with questions or outright skepticism.

For instance, an affordable housing overlay district would allow developers in parts of Chinatown to build structures up to 350 feet tall, if they meet two thresholds: 60 percent of the gross floor area must be devoted to residential uses, and 60 percent of the residential units must be income-restricted and meet an affordability standard. While advocates support the idea of more affordable housing in Chinatown, 35 stories, they argue, is way too high for the neighborhood.

Through a spokesperson, the city’s planning department said the overlay “reflects heights of recent projects in the area, how other areas of downtown are being rezoned to increase allowable building height, and acknowledges the clear community priority to deliver affordable housing in Chinatown in an area of limited sites for development.”

Others are critical of the income ceiling for who would qualify for the affordable housing in such projects. Under the city’s plan, households making up to the area median income would qualify. For a one-person household, the cap would be about $114,000.

Advocates want the cap to be much lower, say 60 percent of area median income, which would be about $68,000 for a one-person household. That would more directly help the neighborhood’s working class and working poor, they argue.
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🫠
 
Fewer buildings, each of which will have fewer units, with impossible affordability requirements. Presto change-o, nothing happens, no new capacity is added, and the few market-rate buildings and units (like this one that just sold) will change hands but at a premium well outside of what the subjects of this article want. Great work everyone!

229 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111 | Compass

229 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111 is a multi-family home not currently listed. This is a 6-bed, 4-bath, 2,988 sqft property.
www.compass.com
 
Somehow missed this thread when it was fresh. Looks like a great project. And a huge, huge (y) to @mssrro for that incredibly researched write-up on the history of the location.

JeffDowntown said:
The ugly low rise across the street is a telecom switchgear building (bunker) -- not likely going anywhere.

The problem with most of the parking lot parcels in Chinatown is they are not single parcels -- they are usually multiple small historical former row house parcels, owned by multiple family trusts. Every family thinks that their 20 x 50 parcel is the lynchpin parcel for development, so everyone holds out for way too much money and nothing gets developed.
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And in this particular location, it appears to even include a public right of way.

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ritchiew said:
Agreed.
What that really means is this block badly needs a real re-design. It's incredibly wide, so there's space for a bike lane. The city just needs to protect it, maybe by expanding the sidewalk and putting the bikes raised up there. The space for cars was so wide that one whole lane got turned into a kind of pocket park without any problems. That was supposed to be temporary, I thought. It's probably time to figure out a permanent solution.
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There is a good model for that just a few blocks away on Stuart Street, in front of the W Boston.
 
Under the plan, the maximum height of projects would be 45 feet, down from the current 80 feet. (Chinatown’s row houses tend to be three to four stories in height.) Other restrictions, according to the city, would help ensure new buildings “would be of similar size and scale to the existing row houses” in a certain subdistrict of Chinatown.
[...]
While advocates support the idea of more affordable housing in Chinatown, 35 stories, they argue, is way too high for the neighborhood.
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I can't believe that people nitpick height so much during a housing shortage. Why even live in an urban area if you're so opposed to and afraid of urban development?
 
Really depressing states of affairs in Boston land use right now. The City is doubling down on endless community process, half-measures, and delay while a record low number of projects are starting and housing and hotel costs continue to skyrocket. This project is a no-brainer and like many should be allowed as of right. The BPDA began downtown and Chinatown re-zoning in 2018, going on seven years ago. Don't worry, another draft plan and workshop is coming soon.
 
In principle, Chinatown would be great for massive amounts of value captures from turning tenements into towers. In practice, the Chinatown affordable housing developers are enormous NIMBYs who have resisted making deals like this for the past decade.

That Globe article is ridiculous, too, referring to short tenements, overcrowded for 150 years or more, as "rowhouses."

Don't forget, too, that there's lots of new people of Chinese descent in Boston. Many of theme would like to live in or near Chinatown. But they can't, so who's surprised that Chinatown is now in Quincy?
 
Why doesn't Boston just start small pocket neighbourhoods near transit or build new transit to it. Less big shadows, less nimby complaints, sprawl on transit to not over load the system. Like Assembly, North Point, Lower Allston, etc.
 
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