[CANCELED] 1000 Boylston Street | MassDOT Parcel 15 | Back Bay

Probably best to put any responses about the global economic conditions, trade deals, and Boston's resilience to recessions in other threads. Just to head off political tangents at the pass ;)
 
The height people should be thrilled this one got shit canned. The Dalton St Garage is probably the only really feasible site in the next boom to be a possible 800ft+ tower due to favorable site location. A residential condo on the grass next door would certainly have made that a difficult if not impossible project.

Not building over the pike here sucks but it's gonna happen eventually when the economics make more sense.
 
stick n move said:
The good thing is everything Ive read so far regarding Boston says that although the luxury market in nyc has peaked and is slowing down, supposedly Boston is expected to chug right along due to chronic undersupply and extremely high demand. I shared a few different articles on here, but Boston has a demand of like 70,000 or something more units than exist in the market so it should keep moving right along. On top of that education and medicine arent anywhere near as volatile and dont have the major swings that finance markets have so that along with strong demand should keep Boston building right through all but the worst slowdowns.
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This might be your finest post evaar:

optimistic (so you), factual, uplifting, & tacitly understated.
 
Umm 6 posts ago I said “I agree” that we had gotten off topic and shouldnt be talking about the market in this thread. Even though its technically on topic because ppl are speculating thats why this project was axed. Anyways its not my fault he quotes me to drag it out even further with a useless post waay after me and others had said stop its the wrong thread.. Nobodys arguing and I cant help who quotes me and says random crap.. idiot.

Can everybody agree to shut the hell up collectively because complaining about ppl complaining and sharing and commenting useless posts... drags it EVEN further off topic. Lets get back on topic like I agreed to do 6 posts ago... Good? Great.
 
George_Apley said:
Add one more thing to the pile of things to blame for this project's demise: minimum parking requirements.
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The sad truth is: if this project were on terra firma, it would have started construction a year ago. How many heartbreaks do we need in this city to stop hoping? Air rights suuuuuuuuck.
 
Equilibria said:
The sad truth is: if this project were on terra firma, it would have started construction a year ago. How many heartbreaks do we need in this city to stop hoping? Air rights suuuuuuuuck.
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But most of this project was on terra firma.
 
George_Apley said:
But most of this project was on terra firma.
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Yeah, but it still involved construction impacts to the Turnpike (and therefore more complicated/high-risk construction) and negotiations with MassDOT about lane closures, etc. that could easily spook financiers. If I'm one of them, do I fund this, or do I fund a building of equivalent height in the West End or a even a slightly smaller project in the Seaport, Cambridge, or Somerville?

Maybe Samuels can pull this off, but the exact same thing happened with Copley Square. It's a goose egg for towers over the Turnpike since the Pru (or Copley Square, depending on whether you see those as towers). At some point, the Commonwealth or the City will need to subsidize something if they want this scar healed.
 
George_Apley said:
But most of this project was on terra firma.
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Agree, but I think it matters if any part of a project extends over a highway, even if not the most structurally challenging, because of all of the coordination/regulation/logistics/cross-organization coordination, etc.

I actually think that the structural design work aspect is not the hardest part of air-rights. Not denying it adds cost though.
 
As others have alluded to, I think the lesson learned here is don't negotiate against yourself. I'll never understand why developers think they can build goodwill with NIMBY's by proposing to lower the height of their buildings. All that happens is that these radical loons smell blood in the water and become even more extreme.

Winthrop Square is the opposite end of this. They were out front with the benefits ($150M) outweighing the costs (shadows in the Common on mornings in January) AND they stuck with the 775 ft proposal until they absolutely had to come off of it. Furthermore, that wasn't a concession to NIMBY's but rather to the FAA.

So, developers, stop negotiating against yourself. It never, ever, works.
 
These developers may also be taking a wait-and-see approach with Parcel 12 slated to go up over the Pike right down the street. If that decking goes smoothly, it'll likely remove some of the construction uncertainty around this one. If not, then "better them than us."
 
^also, I think it's worth noting that there are key differences between this project and the Copley Place Tower. Here, the entire parcel has no other revenue-generating purpose or value. In Copley, Simon can just sit for a long time without doing anything because the overall mall is (presumably) profitable as it stands.

One might think these developers would want to capitalize some aspect of their sunk costs eventually? Maybe they think they can get a better return on sunk costs after, as Jumbo suggests, a precedent is set for how costly the coordination costs are in P12?

ROI calculations might look different once uncertainty is replaced with precedent (in either the more or less favorable direction!)
 
bigpicture7 said:
Agree, but I think it matters if any part of a project extends over a highway, even if not the most structurally challenging, because of all of the coordination/regulation/logistics/cross-organization coordination, etc.

I actually think that the structural design work aspect is not the hardest part of air-rights. Not denying it adds cost though.
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One major issue connected to finances and "Risky Projects"

The winners in the next phase of local if not global real estate development and especially those projects with enhanced "Risk" such as building over the Pike -- Deep Pocket -- essentially self financing developers

Examples locally:
  1. the Big U's : Harvard, MIT, BU, NU [not necessarily in order]
  2. Global Companies such as Skanska
  3. US Mega Companies such as Tishman Speyer
  4. Companies supplying specialty customers -- particularly with a project with a heavy weight tenant in their back pocket such as: Alexandra, Boston Proprieties [several others in the Seaport]
  5. Companies with a proven track record on delivering big projects such as Millennium, Samuels, DivcoWest [developer of Cambridge Crossing]*
  6. Companies sitting on land that they own [aka Seaport, Suffolk, Aquarium Parking garage, etc]

The losers are the smaller developers working on a big project -- especially those with need of major foreign financing who are developing on granted authority to develop but lacking in any underlying equity -- I think 1000 Boylston ended up in that category


* DivcoWest
DivcoWest, founded by Stuart Shiff, is a vertically-integrated operator, owner, developer and real estate partner to the innovation economy. DivcoWest employs 118 employees across corporate offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, DC and New York as well as numerous property management locations across the United States. Since its inception, DivcoWest and its predecessor have acquired more than 42.9 million square feet of commercial space - primarily throughout the United States. DivcoWest has a longstanding history of investing primarily in properties that serve the innovation markets of the economy, seeking to capitalize on DivcoWest’s extensive network of relationships within the markets for which the company has served over the last 25+ years. DivcoWest’s real estate portfolio currently includes existing and development properties consisting of office, R&D, lab, industrial, retail and multifamily.
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bigpicture7 said:
^also, I think it's worth noting that there are key differences between this project and the Copley Place Tower. Here, the entire parcel has no other revenue-generating purpose or value. In Copley, Simon can just sit for a long time without doing anything because the overall mall is (presumably) profitable as it stands.

One might think these developers would want to capitalize some aspect of their sunk costs eventually? Maybe they think they can get a better return on sunk costs after, as Jumbo suggests, a precedent is set for how costly the coordination costs are in P12?

ROI calculations might look different once uncertainty is replaced with precedent (in either the more or less favorable direction!)
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The only prob with copley is their air rights are grandfathered in and they expire pretty soon, in like 3 years. Once it expires the new laws of no shadows on the common take over and no tower ever gets built there.
 
OK, I'm calling it. Simon will decide to move forward with Copley Tower now that Weiner has backed out. Simon was afraid of luxury saturation, and now a big chunk of that planned luxury is not happening.
 
type001 said:
OK, I'm calling it. Simon will decide to move forward with Copley Tower now that Weiner has backed out. Simon was afraid of luxury saturation, and now a big chunk of that planned luxury is not happening.
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I don't think this tower was very far through the design process when Simon cancelled. That reason was an excuse anyway. That project didn't happen because people don't like to finance complicated, risky things. Same as this one.
 
Rover said:
As others have alluded to, I think the lesson learned here is don't negotiate against yourself. I'll never understand why developers think they can build goodwill with NIMBY's by proposing to lower the height of their buildings. All that happens is that these radical loons smell blood in the water and become even more extreme.
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Too true. The Robert Moses/Jane Jacobs equilibrium here is somewhat out of whack. Perhaps it's time for a bit more Bob and a bit less Jane.
 
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