Boston 2024

Equilibria said:
... Leaving aside that the bid has actually galvanized public support for housing and transit far more than would have been possible otherwise ...
Click to expand...

EDIT: My question is, can you provide more details on your assertion that the Olympics proposal has done any of this???
 
Last edited:
Equilibria said:
what's YOUR plan, Chris? You're a former Assistant Secretary of Transportation, so how would you recommend fixing infrastructure? How would you improve housing? Most importantly, how does not bidding for the Olympics make those things easier or more likely?
Click to expand...

Every fringe infrastructure or development benefit from the Olympics could be done for a fraction of the cost that is likely to result from tying it to the Olympics. Its like buying a wedding cake versus buying a sheet cake from the store.

Like I've said I support the Olympics, but the objective shouldn't be to maximize overly costly fringe benefits.
 
I'd be more open to the idea that we should just fix all our problems sans Olympics if there was any indication whatsoever over the last decade that fixing our problems with business as usual is even a REMOTE possibility. Seriously, all the city/region's infrastructure, transportation, and housing issues have been well known and amply discussed public knowledge for YEARS. We've done NOTHING. Tell me what you're looking at that makes you think that will change.
 
Last edited:
I'd be more open to the idea that we should just fix all our problems sans Olympics if there was any indication whatsoever over the last decade that fixing our problems with business as usual is even a REMOTE possibility. Seriously, all the city/region's infrastructure, transportation, and housing issues have been well known and amply discussed public knowledge for YEARS. We've done NOTHING. Tell me what you're looking at that makes you think that will change.
Click to expand...

There is no indication we're going to fix them even with the Olympics either.
 
meddlepal said:
There is no indication we're going to fix them even with the Olympics either.
Click to expand...

Well we have to build an Olympic village if we get the Olympics. That's a given for creating a large amount of housing. Heck, I'd argue the Olympics are worth it for the housing alone. It will never happen at such an immense scale without the Olympics.
 
I would rather have housing now than in nine years though. The Bayside Expo center is going down regardless of an Olympics and if that land is reserved for an Athletes' Village then that's a huge piece of land that can't house anyone in the interim.

I don't see how the Olympics is really going to help housing though? I mean, wonks understand that in order to host the Olympics without inflicting serious self harm to your city you need to increase housing stock. However, is Boston 2024 going to offer any solutions for increasing housing stock? Isn't housing something that can easily be ignored as it would not derail a bid in the way transportation problems could make hosting problematic?

I think that if political leadership can't handle or understand current problems then it isn't unfair to say that they wouldn't be able to handle or understand those same problems with an added layer of complexity with an Olympics.
 
What do you mean by "large" and "immense scale"?

What numbers have you heard? What type of housing will this be? Where will it be located?

datadyne007 said:
Well we have to build an Olympic village if we get the Olympics. That's a given for creating a large amount of housing. Heck, I'd argue the Olympics are worth it for the housing alone. It will never happen at such an immense scale without the Olympics.
Click to expand...

From what I've read, I believe there will be a net gain of ~2,500 to 2,900 units of "market rate" residential housing created as a result of an Olympics in Boston, with the majority of units being converted into dormitories for UMass Boston.

From the Boston 2024 documents:

The proposed Athletes’ Village will create a vibrant, mixed-use community on the Columbia Point waterfront. The residential program required by the Olympics will fulfill the 6,000 dormitory beds needed by the University of Massachusetts.

The remaining 10,500 beds will be converted to approximately 2,500 - 2,900 market rate housing units and ground floor retail space. These units will be high quality, sustainable and transportable housing units capable of being relocated to fill local housing needs in neighborhoods around the city.
Click to expand...

Further, while "market rate", these units might not be appealing to the typical home buyer or renter (some will be sold, some will be rented) as they will be designed as "suites" per IOC regulations.

The target market for rental of this new housing is Millennials. This demographic wants to be close to the city, have access to rapid transit and values efficient design and technological capabilities over “luxuries.” There is a high demand for workforce and market rate housing in Boston and these sustainable homes would have instant appeal to this demographic.
Click to expand...

If I have the information wrong, please correct.
 
underground said:
I'd be more open to the idea that we should just fix all our problems sans Olympics if there was any indication whatsoever over the last decade that fixing our problems with business as usual is even a REMOTE possibility. Seriously, all the city/region's infrastructure, transportation, and housing issues have been well known and amply discussed public knowledge for YEARS. We've done NOTHING. Tell me what you're looking at that makes you think that will change.
Click to expand...

Take the London Olympics as an example. The City of London's net loss on the Olympic village after selling the Olympic village facility to be converted to market rate housing (East Village) was over $400 million dollars (£275 million). How much more housing could have been built instead if $400 million was used to purpose build housing in various locations instead of building a hotel style Olympic village and then converting that into residential apartments? Instead that is public money that is just gone and private money that was diverted from other projects.

If the Boston 2024 plan called for creating apartments that would not need to be converted from hotel style rooms into apartments, then that might save overall net costs and allow them to sell/rent the apartments sooner after the games. The conversion costs are a key element of net Olympic specific waste that needs to be nailed down.

As for "business as usual", business as usual would involve building a few dorms at a time at the UMass Boston Campus, planning for which is already underway along with other campus improvements. Building everything at once is also likely to increase costs substantially and then will create a maintenance cost bubble when the buildings all start requiring increased maintenance at the same time.

That said, the devil is simply in the details. If the plan can reduce the conversion costs creatively, perhaps by simply creating full market rate style apartments for athletes instead of hotel style rooms then maybe they can recoup the building costs and turn this into a plan which minimizes Olympic specific costs to the public which will have no long term benefit. And perhaps utilize the existing hotel instead of razing it which just wipes out all that previous private investment.

If you actually look at changes in and around the City over the last few decades and the progress in many areas of housing, transportation and public spaces then I think that contradicts the position that we have done "NOTHING". Housing has been steadily built, transportation has steadily been improved, and public spaces have been created and better maintained in many areas. There is No Reason to believe that steady improvements won't continue to be made without the Olympics. And real reasons based on past experience to believe that an overly gratuitous Olympic plan will drain net resources from all these areas where public and private investments would yield greater returns.

The only way there is a net economic benefit to the City is if there is a well thought out plan that uses money gained from the short term influx of outside money to invest back into local infrastructure and back into the local economy. But that is extremely unlikely as a lot of money spent on the "Olympics" is on advertising and marketing that will in no way impact the Massachusetts economy.

I think shooting for at least a neutral plan where the local costs don't outweigh the tangible local benefits is a win because of all the intangible benefits and if there can be some net value in terms of tens of millions of dollars then that would be gravy. But in terms of net economic benefits and net benefits to transportation and housing I think expecting this to be a trans-formative multibillion dollar net gain event is delusional at best.

There is a huge risk that this will result in billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to one-off venues and we will be building excess capacity into T-stations and surrounding facilities that will never be used again or in fact will be torn down and rebuilt into something else entirely at redundant public/private expense. The potential for waste surrounding these games is historically proven to be huge and makes the requirement for a realistic and fiscally prudent plan key to moving forward.

Perhaps it is hubris to believe Boston can do it better than all those other cities that have been worse off for having hosted the Olympics, but I am willing to give this a shot as long as most people don't start drinking the billion dollar Kool-Aid thinking it is a magic elixir.
 
JohnAKeith said:
What do you mean by "large" and "immense scale"?

What numbers have you heard? What type of housing will this be? Where will it be located?



From what I've read, I believe there will be a net gain of ~2,500 to 2,900 units of "market rate" residential housing created as a result of an Olympics in Boston, with the majority of units being converted into dormitories for UMass Boston.

From the Boston 2024 documents:



Further, while "market rate", these units might not be appealing to the typical home buyer or renter (some will be sold, some will be rented) as they will be designed as "suites" per IOC regulations.



If I have the information wrong, please correct.
Click to expand...

Dormitories are housing units too. Every student living in a dorm is a student not sucking up market rate rentals.

One of the big census "mysteries" in the 2010 Census for Boston was how Boston's population grew a lot in the decade, with virtually no net addition to housing. This should not have been a mystery, but the housing authorities do not count dorm rooms as housing. The mystery is easily solved if all the new dorms that were constructed in the decade are added into the housing picture.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Dormitories are housing units too. Every student living in a dorm is a student not sucking up market rate rentals.

One of the big census "mysteries" in the 2010 Census for Boston was how Boston's population grew a lot in the decade, with virtually no net addition to housing. This should not have been a mystery, but the housing authorities do not count dorm rooms as housing. The mystery is easily solved if all the new dorms that were constructed in the decade are added into the housing picture.
Click to expand...

I cannot speak to how the housing authorities classify housing numbers; however, I can offer you an expert-level analysis of the 2010 Boston Census numbers (as I'm the guy who tabulated all the data... neatly presented here via the BRA). According to the 2010 US Census findings, the city actually added 20,000 housing units between 2000 and 2010 to a total stock of 272,481 units (an 8.2% increase). Additionally, dormitories are considered by the US Census Bureau. They're listed under population living in "Group Quarters" (non-institutionalized). According to the data, nearly 40,000 residents were living in non-institutionalized group quarters in 2010 compared to 26,596 in 2000 for a 13,000 person increase (*I'd bet that Northeastern alone accounted for 40% of that change).

Regarding the topic, The net increase in dormitories for UMass Boston and other area schools between 2010 and 2024 would likely be in line with the growth rate experienced between 2000 and 2010, Olympics or not. But if UMass was forecasting a longer construction time frame for the build out of their dorms, then that's all the more reason to support Olympics to expedite housing construction.
 
Thank you.

How much faith should we have in the ACS tally? It states there has only been 748 units of housing added to Boston's stock, 2010 or later.

I don't believe UMass had announced any plans on adding dormitories so the units there could be tied directly to the Olympics.

Of course, the prior mayor was against any dormitories being built at UMass, as were many area residents who, as far as I know, are still against the idea, even though it (might) remove students from their neighborhood (Dorchester at Savin Hill).
 
JohnAKeith said:
How much faith should we have in the ACS tally?
Click to expand...

When it comes to hard numbers, I'd stick to decennial census or SF-1 data. The pros: they're hard numbers and compare well to data going back several census cycles. The downside: data only comes out every 10 years (collected April 1, 20_0, released around one year later).

ACS is useful for more detailed topics or characteristics, but I prefer not to use when possible as they are estimates... not hard numbers. The ACS 5-year estimates offer solid data averaged over the course of sampling over five years. New ACS data is released annually. Again, though, they are averages, and only of population samples... not hard numbers. Additionally, ACS #'s should NEVER be compared to decennial census #'s.


JohnAKeith said:
It states there has only been 748 units of housing added to Boston's stock, 2010 or later.
Click to expand...

Come on, John, we're both real estate professionals and know that # is total bologna. From 2000 to 2010, the city added far more than 748 units. Off the top of my head Archstone Boston Common (420 units) Archstone Avenir (241 units), 45 Province (137 units), and Ritz Carlton (132 units) opened in that time frame, and that's just downtown! And with this current construction boom we're in the midst of, the # of units added to Boston's housing stock has surely soared above 10,000+ units since 2010.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Thank you.
How much faith should we have in the ACS tally? It states there has only been 748 units of housing added to Boston's stock, 2010 or later.
Click to expand...

From my looking at Allston/Brighton, the ACS numbers are completely meaningless for real estate purposes. The deltas I see from 2000-2010 make sense and map extremely well to developments that occurred. Deltas in the ACS numbers from 2010-now just don't match what I know is happening on the ground.
 
Yeah, that's my thought.

Related, I tweeted the BRA to see if they have keep a tally of Certificates of Occupancy for new residential housing units but didn't get a response. I think ISD issues them but figured the BRA would track them, too. Those are the things you get when new units are ready to be rented / sold. Tracking building permits doesn't give a real idea of how many units are being added since those permits may never result in actual construction.

I did a little spreadsheet of units under construction right now in large apartment complexes throughout the city and came up with ... 6,600; 4,500 in "downtown" Boston.

wut.
 
Not sure if this was posted, but if not...

...I know both Chris Faraone and Jeff Lawrence from the Dig. I know people who like to shit on both the Dig and NIMBY's (I like the Dig, but I'm not always big on NIMBY's either), but Chris isn't wrong. In addition to being totally antisemetic, Shirley Leung is just a mouthpiece for Suffolk Construction.

Changing attitudes towards the NFL have made me rethink the idea of building a...wait for it...seaport stadium. Drunk assholes on the streets of Southie watching grown, overpaid roidheads giving each other concussions and contusions is not my idea of a family, friendly Sunday afternoon.

https://digboston.com/help-us-build-a-skyscraper-in-boston-globe-columnist-shirley-leungs-backyard/

She’s the author of such classics as “It’s time to say yes to Walmart,” and of not just one but two columns this week alone in which she shamelessly shills for John Fish and his cabal of cronies pushing Boston 2024. Of course we’re talking about Boston Globe punchline Shirley Leung, the most loathsome writer in New England save for Ben Mezrich and every opinionated bigot at the Boston Herald. Like all devout boosters of unfettered capitalism, Leung was presumably raised to stick up for the bully. In case you missed her April Fool’s Day joke earlier this week …

It must be a confusing time for Fish. Here he is trying to do what he thinks is a good thing, to bring the Summer Games to the city and state, creating thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic development. And along the way, the Olympics just might get us a T that works all year round.
But these days, it seems like whatever Boston 2024 says or does is the absolute wrong thing. Spruce up Franklin Park? No! Deval Patrick as global ambassador? Not for $7,500-a-day?#$! Sponsor a referendum? Those guys are co-opting the ballot process!

If blaming residents wasn’t depraved enough, Leung doubled down this morning. Since everyone must share the blame for imminent Olympic failure except those vying to actually bring the Summer Games to Boston, this time she smacks around the publicists who can’t seem to convince the most educated state in America that up is down, ice is hot, fish don’t stink, and so forth. On Planet Leung, the problem isn’t any of the innumerable issues raised by concerned citizens—it’s that media relations wizards aren’t spinning enough wool to pull over the public’s eyes …

Boston 2024 is awash in problems — and none bigger is the group’s ability to get its message across that the Games can make Boston a better version of itself. The Olympics are supposed to be a feel-good event, but not here. Instead, the Games are toxic, as if organizers are proposing to build a nuclear waste dump on the Greenway.

It’s difficult to entertain this kind of utter bullshit humorously, though lampooning Leung’s fraudulence helps to curb the fits of rage that she provokes. No human could possibly think a lot of the things she writes, like that Fish gives one-tenth of a turd about Franklin Park; as such, the best way to besiege her is to focus on something Leung seems to actually believe: namely, that NIMBYs are the worst, and that people should roll over every time a builder gets a hard-on for their neighborhood. Some examples:

The first rule of NIMBY Club is that being a NIMBY is always bad, and you never want to be one. Observe in this 2014 piece about the harborfront: “Then there is everyone else, armed with concerns about the project but also conscious of being cast as NIMBYs.”

As a holiday gift late last December, Leung bravely pitched solutions for dealing with perturbed residents. Also, people who don’t want the whole city looking like the discombobulated Innovation District are fun to piss off: “That should get the NIMBYs going.”

Sometimes Leung teams with politicians to trash her enemies. From a 2013 heater about East Boston: “Rizzo, 54, gives the councilor this much: The process could have been better, but starting from scratch wouldn’t have gotten rid of the NIMBYs. ‘If they were to scrap these plans and come back and say they wanted to build a mall in East Boston, you would have had people calling Sal and saying, ‘I don’t want a mall,’’ said Rizzo.”

She may detest ‘em, but NIMBYs rejoiced last June when Leung was kind enough to approve their participation in a process that could potentially transform their city forever: “We need to hammer out these details soon. Yes, this is also an open invitation to naysayers and NIMBYs, whose critiques should be part of the process. Don’t hold back, because the US bid could be decided as early as January.”

All things considered, we feel that it only makes sense to raise $100 million dollars to construct a state-of-the-art skyscraper in Leung’s backyard (final cost estimates are still in the works). It will be called “Olympic Tower,” and it will house college students and artists who will operate the mixed-use development’s 24-7 pot dispensary and heavy metal venue. It won’t be easy, but considering how many executive salads Leung has rhetorically tossed over the years, there may even be a shot of finishing this project without having to use taxpayer money. Please send all donations to the Shirley Leung fan club of your choice.

Finally, we should note that Leung hasn’t always been a publicist for plutocrats. Back in her days at the Baltimore Sun, she even managed to write evenly about people who were fighting off a football stadium. In a 1995 article titled “Stadium fight becomes full-time job,” Leung went so far as to quote a woman saying, “A lot of people think when there is opposition, they dismiss us as a handful of NIMBY types,” and herself noted, “Had the community not rallied, construction would have started already.”

One can only imagine the disdain Leung, then just a reporter, secretly had for the activists in Maryland, those bastards who believed their neighborhood deserved better than to become a fall destination for thousands of inebriated savages. On that note, please give as much as you can swing; if there’s enough money left over, we’d also like to build a new home for the Revolution on her front lawn.

[Media Farm is wrangled by DigBoston News + Features Editor Chris Faraone]
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top