Copley Place Expansion and Tower | Back Bay

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odurandina said:
endless 260' squat highrises

mid-rises and infill

the sum of all fears
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The horror that we might build housing some of the folks in the professional working-class can afford.

We really need housing that people in the 100-150K income bracket can afford.
 
The market can't work properly when there is so many restrictions on zoning, height, nimbys, inclusionary zoning/payments, union labor requirements, etc. Reducing these costs would certainly help make building more feasible. If developers can make a profit, they will certainly do so.
 
I agree mostly with the above but I'm under the impression that developers will charge whatever the market can bear...and apparently it can bear a lot. Which is why I'm not convinced Simon is unable to make this project work. Especially since four seasons is setting the table for them.
 
Regardless of how this whole economic machine exactly works, it just doesn't make sense for a company to have invested substantial money into obtaining an approved (now grandfathered...thus one-of-a-kind) plan, and to just throw that away. At the very least, why wouldn't they put it on the market just to see what kind of return they'd get? If the market doesn't offer them much of a return, so be it, but what is the harm in learning that?

Just sitting on it and letting the 10 year validity lapse would be idiotic. That would constitute an automatic destruction of value.
 
meddlepal said:
The horror that we might build housing some of the folks in the professional working-class can afford.

We really need housing that people in the 100-150K income bracket can afford.
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It seems to me that the best solution is to keep building luxury stuff for the upper middle class and higher to buy/rent. This lowers demand on older construction, freeing it up for lower income brackets.
 
DominusNovus said:
It seems to me that the best solution is to keep building luxury stuff for the upper middle class and higher to buy/rent. This lowers demand on older construction, freeing it up for lower income brackets.
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Except developers won't because they won't make a profit. It was just stated in the article.
 
If only there was some policy lever that could be adjusted to lower the cost of new building. Ah well, setback requirements, parking minimums and FAR limits impose no costs, so there's really nothing we can do
 
FitchburgLine said:
If only there was some policy lever that could be adjusted to lower the cost of new building.
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What if the city sold development bonds to help developers finance projects. The bonds would be at market interest rates to the borrower, but as developers exceed minimum requirements for providing new low income housing (e.g., either on-premises or at acceptable offset), the interest rate would be successively reduced. This would give the developer continued long-term pressure to keep working at increasing the low income housing supply.

And yet: reduced cost of borrowing does indeed translate to reduced project cost.

And if the developer didn't fulfill their deal to build the low income housing, the borrower's rate would remain at market rate. Thus there would (theoretically) be no preferential treatment for a developer who doesn't improve the community beyond the baseline requirements...and, in conditions like present-day Copley tower, there would be insufficient motivation to build the tower UNLESS you planned to build a lot of low-income housing along with it.

FURTHER EDIT: obviously the city's sponsorship of this program would impose a financial burden on the city (in the form of offering the below-market interest rate if the developer does come through with the new low income housing)...but this burden on the city could fully be mitigated by earmarking a portion of the taxes from the new luxury residences to fund the interest rate reduction for the building of the low income residences. In other words, the city's never on the hook for the money unless the developer comes through with their full suite of commitments, and it's essentially the rich condo buyers who are funding the new low income housing through an earmarked portion of their real estate tax.
 
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bigpicture7 said:
Regardless of how this whole economic machine exactly works, it just doesn't make sense for a company to have invested substantial money into obtaining an approved (now grandfathered...thus one-of-a-kind) plan, and to just throw that away.
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It's business malpractice to spend millions of dollars to permit a site, decide not to build, but then not sell the project to a developer for whatever the market will bear; even if that sum is as paltry as $15~20M. If anything Simon should have looked at the project as doing what Simon Properties does, and leave the tower building to partners or sell.

City Hall concedes being compressed in a paradigm that a highrise or low skyscraper requires vetting to the ends of heaven and Earth–instead of just building it. This has resulted in a woeful, stunted skyline.

If Copley Tower and such others could have been permitted at the beginning of the cycle when labor and construction costs were lower.... Then if the Seaport buildout could have just been a few years later, we'd be looking at a much nicer buildout of Downtown, Back Bay and the Fenway. Of course, those lost towers are up; except they've been parsed into halves or thirds in the Seaport; a district underserved by transit. This state of affairs really pisses me off.
 
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I don't think we need more four seasons like places. What we need more of is places like Assembly, Avalon North Station, etc. Places with rents between 2-3k a month. That's affordable for most white collar couples and will reduce pressure on the older housing stock.
 
DominusNovus said:
The developers won't have anything to do with it, hence talking about older buildings.
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You just said that the best solution is to keep building luxury stuff so that older buildings will fall to the lower bracket. Who builds the luxury stuff? Developers. Who's not going to keep building the luxury stuff if they can't make a profit? Developers. That's the linchpin to your solution and if that first half doesn't happen, neither would the second half.
 
tysmith95 said:
I don't think we need more four seasons like places. What we need more of is places like Assembly, Avalon North Station, etc. Places with rents between 2-3k a month. That's affordable for most white collar couples and will reduce pressure on the older housing stock.
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This. There needs to be more focus on this. I think the Charlestown redevelopment is another good example but I believe it doesn't go far enough. The city should allow developers to build bigger with expanding affordable housing as a bargaining chip. Maintaining the existing stock doesn't do anything.
 
I think one glaring problem that is preventing housing prices to fall is the arms race to provide the best amenities which drives up the cost. It is similar to the problem that many universities face, i.e. universities spending tons and tons of money on amenities to compete for students, which essentially drives up the cost of tuition and dorm fees. The housing market is no different, with each new luxury building touting the best amenities that aren't necessary for the average resident and charging an exorbitant fee for them. Having developers build simple apartments would go a long way in dampening prices.
 
There's some weird economic theories surfacing in this thread.

In 2016, Boston had the highest Gini Index of any large American city. (High is generally considered bad.). (Allowing for possible distortion because of Boston's student population)

https://www.brookings.edu/research/...lity-on-the-rise-driven-by-declining-incomes/

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...near-the-top-in-income-inequality-6794731.php

When those with household incomes in the top five percent are driving and distorting the local housing market, the law of supply and demand eventually catches up. When the housing demand of the top five percent is satisfied, developers won't be adding to the supply of housing for those people. And what is the incentive in Boston, where available land is very scarce, for developers to build housing for those in the bottom half of the income cohort?
 
The market dynamics behind this are admittedly entirely unreplicatable in Boston, but the USD 2-3k a month range seems to be the sweet spot for developers here in Tokyo. There are nine midrises between 15 and 20 floors going up in my neighborhood, all with rents in this range. Probably about 150 of these going up throughout the city now. Usually the top few floors have larger units which go for USD 5k or so, but most of the units are USD 2-3k. Or they sell for about USD 450-500k. Not super cheap, but affordable for a white collar couple bringing in around USD 140k a year (or someone single making around USD 75-80k).

Plus interest rates here are ridiculous. I'm paying 0.65% annually on a 30 year mortgage.
 
KentXie said:
I think one glaring problem that is preventing housing prices to fall is the arms race to provide the best amenities which drives up the cost. It is similar to the problem that many universities face, i.e. universities spending tons and tons of money on amenities to compete for students, which essentially drives up the cost of tuition and dorm fees. The housing market is no different, with each new luxury building touting the best amenities that aren't necessary for the average resident and charging an exorbitant fee for them. Having developers build simple apartments would go a long way in dampening prices.
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Fantastic post. Maybe this can occur at Dudley Square. *There was another proposed highrise with a similar concept that was sacked.
 
KentXie said:
You just said that the best solution is to keep building luxury stuff so that older buildings will fall to the lower bracket. Who builds the luxury stuff? Developers. Who's not going to keep building the luxury stuff if they can't make a profit? Developers. That's the linchpin to your solution and if that first half doesn't happen, neither would the second half.
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Housing is, to a reasonabke degree, pretty fungible. These new upper income tenants aren't appearing out of thin air, so they'll be freeing up less valuable units, which can be occupied by those with lower incomes, and they, in turn, free up their old units, and it just works its way down.
 
Isn't Simon Cooley tower being built over the Mass Pike? That likely raises costs well above a building build on solid ground.
 
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