BCEC expansion | Seaport

Back on topic. I'm struggling with the idea of a 1,000 room hotel costing $700M. Hotel construction is some of the cheaper construction going, and should be pretty much cookie cutter floor to floor.

My quick estimate based on roughly 300 sq. ft. rooms x 1,000 = 300,000 sf x 1.30 (30% for mech. elevators. lobby, retail) = 390,000 (round up to 400,000). 700m/400k = $1,750/sf. Wee bit high. I can't find the info for hotels right now, but Means has construction cost for a residence hall at roughly $222/sf in Boston. 400,000 x $222 = $90m. Now I know that's way too low for Boston, but $200m - 300 would make a bit more sense. The W cost what $243m? Am I missing something or is it just bad reporting.

After all that, I'm assuming 700 mil is the cost of the convention center expansion. Sorry.
 
I noticed that too Seamus. You should be able to build a business hotel for under $450K per room. There must be some function space (ballrooms, meeting rooms, etc.) in the hotel that they're not mentioning.
 
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Arborway said:
The problem with libertarians is the cognitive dissonance that many of them exhibit.

"I want government out of my life completely! No more funding for things like X and Y!"

"Well that means we're going to have to cut your favorite program Z as well."

"Cut everything but program Z! Cutting Z would be crazy and unacceptable!"
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Most libertarians I know are more principled than that, but they do allow for a Z that they claim is a Constitutional requirement of the federal government (primarily z = national defense and contract law) and are only too happy to fund that and only that through taxes.

The real problem with libertarianism isn't internal contradiction, it's lack of real world practicality. They offer no realistic solution to issues like polution or management of scarce resources. That's the reason it fails on the electoral level -- most people get that a society only based upon self interest is a society of hermits.
 
HenryAlan said:
The real problem with libertarianism isn't internal contradiction, it's lack of real world practicality. They offer no realistic solution to issues like pollution or management of scarce resources. That's the reason it fails on the electoral level -- most people get that a society only based upon self interest is a society of hermits.
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This is so well stated that I can't add more to it, except to exclaim "bravo!"



Well, not quite ... It's worth pointing out that in the late Nineteenth Century, Libertarians were known as "Anarchists", and they claimed the lives of two American presidents, and later started World War I. Note also that the Anarchist's utopia is Anarchy (Anarchia?).
 
The convention center should just partner with fan pier to build the stalled hotel at that location.

I think it would cost taxpayers significantly less and would probably get construction started faster.
 
^With respect, palindrome, I strongly disagree.

Fan Pier property has been enriched at taxpayer expense ten times over already. Area property owners have sat out the past decade with a tin cup, while harvesting the income of overflowing parking lots -- packed with cars far beyond what they've been permitted for.

If the economy doesn't support private investment in a hotel, that's a hint. The failure of the 'W' is another hint.

And even if the economy was going gangbusters, taxpayers should NOT be in the business of building hotels. The taxpayer's dime went into a short-money lease for the Seaport hotel on prime real estate. My guess is that the developer got a break from property taxes as well. Where does it end?
 
very valid and well though points, and I absolutely agree (I usually let my desire to see new development cloud practicality and financial judgment.)
 
^Based on the level of publicly-funded infrastructure (highway ramps, Silver Line), publicly funded improvements (harbor cleanup), publicly funded facilities (BCEC) and area attractions (ICA, some restaurants and shops), the only impediment to hotel development over recent years has been that parking revenue is too lucrative a business.

Maybe (trial balloon) City Hall should consider that the operation of a parking lot in 2010 is a "blight" on Boston's Waterfront (including Fort Point). I'm not sure, but I wouldn't argue if they taxed the hell out of parking lots and put the money toward some of the civic work being done out there.

And maybe the City should begin enforcement of overparking violations -- from parkers on striped areas to parkers in handicapped spaces.

Perhaps that would stimulate some hotel development instead of having the BCEC jump into the hotel business.
 
If the BRA had any foresight they'd use eminent domain to build a series of canals through the entire district to forcibly break up the parcels. It would discourage mega-project land banking by sole developers and raise the value of smaller parcels. Having smaller valuable parcels brings in equal tax revenues to the mega blocks and would encourage developers to sell or develop at a much faster rate.

Instead we have a 300 acre plan for a suburban office park the size of downtown. Thanks Harvard and MIT for your braintrust.
 
Sicilian said:
^With respect, palindrome, I strongly disagree.

Fan Pier property has been enriched at taxpayer expense ten times over already. Area property owners have sat out the past decade with a tin cup, while harvesting the income of overflowing parking lots -- packed with cars far beyond what they've been permitted for.

If the economy doesn't support private investment in a hotel, that's a hint. The failure of the 'W' is another hint.
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Then it should already be financially primed to move forward with the hotel. I think that this is a much better solution )push the Fan Pier hotel forward) than this new over-budgeted hotel they want to build at the tax payer's expense.

Did the W actually fail? It was my interpretation that they are just restructuring debt as all other over-leveraged properties throughout the country are?
 
I think it was the residential portion of the W that caused it to fail. I don't know where to find occupancy numbers.
 
If the BCEC is so desperate for hotel rooms, why has there been zero movement on the hotel proposed for that teardrop-shaped site? (due west of Congress and B Street.) We first heard about it some four years ago and there hasn't been a peep since.
 
Twelve of the 123 units in the W Hotel & Residences have closed. There's no way to tell how many are under agreement until they actually close.

I wouldn't call the W a "failure" since the hotel is open and people are living in the condos. It's in bankruptcy but still selling the condos.
 
Do banks offer mortgages in bankrupt buildings as if nothing is amiss? Are potential buyers able to negotiate price based on the status of the building? I have no idea, but would guess the "W" is falling short. Granted, "failure" is perhaps too strong a description, but "hint" was the operative word in making my earlier point.

That point is, the market determines the implications for development of a hotel and the market isn't moving. If the BCEC is looking to take on risk, it should do so at the expense of those who can afford risk -- not the taxpayer.

What's odd is that the BCEC claims to be a success but hasn't drawn the commercial projects (retail, etc.) or hotels it originally projected. The market was doing fine up until 2008 and nothing was moving forward. Even Massport spent ten years talking about a mall across Summer Street, yet built nothing.

I am very skeptical of claims being made regarding what is needed for the Boston to compete in the convention market. Very skeptical.
 
I think maybe this isn't the right time for expansion, but as a whole, Boston's convention capacity (which includes lodging) should expand to compete for the really big shows. There are very few cities that a conventioner would have more fun at in the warm months than Boston. All those lesser cities with large facilities will get edged out, but I think Boston would do just fine.
 
Mediocrity and dealmaking in the development community, planning department, insulated agencies and City Hall is milking the life and potential right out of this City -- from its architecture to its public art and far, far beyond.

Yeah. Let's build some hotels and expand the Convention Center. Then they'll come.

http://www.millenniumpark.org/
 
Not sure why I included that link. I was just checking out the Anish Kapoor sculpture on that site and feeling really disgusted at the entire premise of MA taxpayers building hotels. It's pathetic enough we bought into the idea we had to "compete" for visitors by building boxes for conventioneers.

I feel like we are living in the dark ages.
 
The Kapoor "sculpture" at the Guggenheim is just a friggin boiler.
 
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