Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

tobyjug said:
True. And the private sector is motivated to keep its property from becoming a shithole because it becomes a loss, so it uses its power aggressively. When the public sector acts to keep public property from becoming a shithole, it means a lost constituency.

The power the public sector could best use would be to reverse failed Dukakis era deinstitutionalization policies, and actually spend money on these sick and mentally ill unfortunates rather than idealize then as "noble wanderers".
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I find us in agreement about this. Imagine that.
 
Its all cool. Its why this board is better than Congress: we can debate without hate (mostly anyway)!
 
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Saw this funny looking guy protruding out into the air:

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That's definitely what it is, for the hotel project at the corner of Temple Place and Washington.
 
DTX & BID General

It's time to have a thread devoted to the rapidly evolving and developing region of Boston -- more than just the immediate few blocks around Winter / Summer & Washington -- this increasingly connected zone generally encompassing the region between Boston Common & the Greenway

The Heart is of course DTX where the new Millennium Tower is sprouting and it also is the BID

Anyway the newly Renamed Lafayette City Center has provided a page of links to a number of related news stories from the past 12 months or so

Here's the link to the page and the list of the stories:
http://www.lafayetteccboston.com/news.html
Lafayette City Center In The News:

Downtown Crossing: An old district tries to become a new neighborhood
Tech Companies Increasingly Seeking Refuge in Boston's More Established Core
Wave of startups fills up Downtown Crossing offices
Hard to recognize - new places to live, work and play: View Video
High Rises Get New Life As Market Surges
Why Walgreens is the right Rx for Downtown Crossing
Boston humming as appeal of life in city booms
Here's why the Financial District is Boston's next restaurant hot spot
Lafayette Center set to get major makeover
Abbey’s Fenway Magic Moves Downtown
Downtown Crossing office building to become hotel

It sounds like DownTown is going to be the next Big Thing in Boston
 
Boston Globe - 11/8/2013
Boston Globe said:
Downtown Crossing becoming exclusive address

By Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff November 08, 2013

The luxury condos at 45 Province St. in Downtown Crossing went on the market in 2009 at the height of the last recession, a monumental case of bad timing that seemed to doom the $120 million residential tower as another folly of the real estate bubble.

The 137-unit building sat largely empty for years, raising the question of who would pay seven figures for views of a deteriorating neighborhood of empty storefronts, aging shops, and a massive pit where developers of the former Filene’s property had abandoned their own ambitious plans.

But four years later, 45 Province is 90 percent sold at prices that suggest the pent-up aspirations of the neighborhood — which real estate firms market as “Midtown” — to join the roster of Boston’s exclusive neighborhoods may not be so farfetched.

This year, four of Boston’s 30 highest-priced units can be found at 45 Province, each selling for about $4 million or more to buyers such as a Kuwaiti businessman, a biomedical executive, and a wealthy woman from Montana.

The downtown “is kicking into gear,” said Kevin J. Ahearn, president of the Boston-based brokerage firm Otis & Ahearn. “It’s becoming a high-end luxury neighborhood.”

The average sales price in the Downtown Crossing area, $1.3 million, has exceeded the Back Bay’s by about $100,000 this year, according to Ahearn.

For many, it may be hard to imagine Downtown Crossing as a desirable address. It’s still a place where tourists and teenagers in skinny jeans hang out and pick up baseball caps and T-shirts at a discount. The neighborhood’s smaller restaurants still shut down on weekends and after the office buildings go dark. Neon-signed coin stores and cramped nail salons offer a reminder of the area’s grittier past.

Wayne Lopez and his business partner Tina Bacci, the brokers handling sales for 45 Province, said they spent most of the past few years wooing wealthy clients and their brokers, flooding them with facts about Boston and the resilience of the real estate market here. They took potential buyers up the private elevator to show high-end appliances, marble-tiled bathrooms, and post-card views while noting the other indulgences available to residents, including spa services, a mini movie theatre, and valet parking — but with few takers initially.

At the end of the last year, however, they noticed a change: Condos started selling at $3 million, and buyers who had looked and waited for months began to sign contracts.

In addition to an improving economy, low interest rates helped boost sales, not only making it cheaper for buyers to finance big mortgages, but also making real estate more attractive for international investors seeking higher returns.

Well-to-do empty-nesters from the suburbs, upwardly mobile young families, and wealthy Asian and Middle Eastern families seeking a second or a third home, or perhaps a place for their college-age children to crash, are among the buyers moving downtown, they said.

“There’s a confidence factor in it,’’ Lopez said. “Fear was stopping people from buying.”

Adding to that confidence is the renewed activity in the neighborhood, particularly the revival of the Filene’s project, which is being developed by Millennium Partners. The project, which stalled after the financial crisis under a different developer, will build a 625-foot tower that will include luxury residential units, offices, and stores, including a Roche Brothers supermarket.

New restaurants are planned nearby. Retailers such as Macy’s are expanding their houswares offerings and lengthening their hours to meet the demands of a residential community.

Millennium Place, a nearby luxury condominium project also developed Millennium Partners, opened last year and has sold 90 percent of its 256 units, priced from more than $560,000 to $3.3 million

“That neighborhood has finally gotten some traction, and that makes it a much more attractive place,” said Diane Valle, the owner of Boston Portfolio Properties, who represents a buyer closing on a $4 million-plus unit at 45 Province. Valle said her client, whom she declined to name, would not comment for the story.

Debra Blair, president of Listing Information Network, a Boston company that tracks the downtown condo market, moved into 45 Province from the Back Bay soon after it opened. She wanted a building in a diverse neighborhood with all the amenities and a slightly more urban feel than the brownstones and boutiques of the Back Bay, Blair said.

“I knew if I didn’t buy when I did, I would be priced out,” she said.

More people want to live in cities and close to work, and companies are migrating back into the nearby Financial District, Blair added. Earlier this year, the Internet commerce company PayPal took over two floors at One International Place.

Downtown has been trying to reinvent itself a better part of the past half-century. The district used to be the premier shopping destination for Boston, but has struggled to maintain its vitality since suburban malls began drawing shoppers decades ago. It experienced spurts of rejuvenation, but never enough to transform the neighborhood.

Rosemarie Sansone, the president of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District Corporation, which provides services and support in the area, said Downtown Crossing has been making the change from a primarily commercial center to a more residential area in recent years, but the financial crisis and recession put the brakes on that.

During those years, the business group tried to protect the investments developers had made and ensure that residents and potential home buyers who visited the area would feel safe, Sansone said. The trash on the street was always picked up and graffiti quickly removed, she said.

Now, as activity again picks up in the neighborhood, “You can see the difference,” she said.
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @fernandesglobe
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Stat -- I guess my only concern is that often the purchase of a luxury condo doesn't indicate a full-time resident

Some of the owners of the condos own a handful of places distributed around the county or even the world -- there is still a law of physics that generally its difficult to be in more than one place at a time

So 1000 Luxury condos might mean 200 occupied at any one time or alternatively 1000 occupied for 2 months per year -- other similar measures include:
1 day per work week
1 week per month

The implication for the neighborhood infrastructure is that where as a suburban neighborhood might support a nice food market with 500 to 1000 houses -- the DTX might need 2,500 to 5,000 condos to offer the same support

Of course DTX also includes the 100,000 + flowing through on a daily basis weekdays and tens of thousands of tourists on weekends
 
Boy is that article a big wet kiss to real estate agents and developers.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Boy is that article a big wet kiss to real estate agents and developers.
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"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell
 
JohnAKeith said:
Boy is that article a big wet kiss to real estate agents and developers.
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While I agree that the article is a big fluff piece for the real estate developers, the change in Downtown Crossing is real.

I walk from Chinatown to School Street, down Washington almost every day. The vibe of the street has definitely changed for the better. It really seems that a tipping point has been reached in bringing the neighborhood back. The restored theatres, new restaurants on the side streets, lots of investment in rehabbing older buildings (not just the new developments). I think that the changes are going to stick.
 
whighlander said:
Stat -- I guess my only concern is that often the purchase of a luxury condo doesn't indicate a full-time resident

Some of the owners of the condos own a handful of places distributed around the county or even the world -- there is still a law of physics that generally its difficult to be in more than one place at a time

So 1000 Luxury condos might mean 200 occupied at any one time or alternatively 1000 occupied for 2 months per year -- other similar measures include:
1 day per work week
1 week per month

The implication for the neighborhood infrastructure is that where as a suburban neighborhood might support a nice food market with 500 to 1000 houses -- the DTX might need 2,500 to 5,000 condos to offer the same support

Of course DTX also includes the 100,000 + flowing through on a daily basis weekdays and tens of thousands of tourists on weekends
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A major DTX grocery store will pull from a lot larger area than just DTX. I think that it will thrive.
 
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