Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

^
Good point, its all relative. It could be worse, for example, at its peak, the Robert Taylor Homes Projects on the south side of Chicago had 300 separate shooting incidents over one weekend. See link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes

That being said, it can't hurt Downtown Crossing to have some extra law enforcement attention to keep a lid on crime. I frequently walk through the area and always without any apprehension whatsoever. If it gets as bad as the Robert Taylor Homes, I think my survival instinct would kick in and you would find me sticking to the Back Bay or Cambridge.
 
What keeps people away from Downtown Crossing isn't fear of being shot or stabbed, but simple annoyance at being surrounded by drunks and beggars. The more vacant storefronts there are, the more such annoyances proliferate.
 
I agree with Ron, but feel I ought to stick up for the drunks. As to the beggar population, it is up, drawn by the Arch St. Church soup kitchen, St. Joseph's House, and a soup kitchen on Kingston St. The BHA Section 8 program draws a more upscale crowd on Hawley St.

In times of economic stress, these institutions get busier. You could build 80 stories of two million dollar studios surmounting Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Needless Markup on the Filenes site, and you would have the same number of beggars. (Come on over to Avery Street if you don't believe me.) If you choose to ghettoize the delivery of social services, you will have a concentration of the needy.
 
Tobyjug,

I've never heard of the St. Joseph's house. Where is that located? You mentioned Avery Street which reminds me that in addition to the social service facilities you mentioned there are at least two more additional large homeless shelters which bookend Downtown Crossing. The St. Francis shelter in the midst of the Millenium Tower/Ritz Complex and the Veterans Shelter on Court St on the other end of Downtown Crossing.

As for vacancies, Ron, I think that has much to do with extremely high asking rents. The foot traffic counts are incredible from a retailers point of view. If the rent was reasonable and space adequate, I would expect many retailers would locate in Downtown Crossing.

For example, I noticed something the other day on Bromfield St. Nearly all the vacancies on that street are in Druker managed buildings. Retail spaces managed by other landlords are nearly all occupied by mom and pop local type stores. Maybe the asking rents are too high at the Druker owned buildings?
 
Vacant storefronts don't bring in any money. Why would a landlord prefer an empty store instead of lowering the rent?

The vacancies are most noticeable in the northern couple of blocks of Washington, from School St. to State St. FedEx-Kinko's just closed last week, and that's a large and prominent storefront. That "New York Men's Suits" place is gone, too.
 
^^ I don't know, but I'm assuming they sign retailers to fairly long term leases, so there is probably some complex math formula that shows it is more profitable to hold out for a higher rent than sign a lower one. Just a guess.
 
I would imagine many landlords, especially those on Washington Street, are holding out for more credit worthy chain stores. They or their property managers hate chasing rents every month from the local mom and pop businesses. Bromfield street is a off the beaten track retail-wise so I would think landlords would be more flexible in entering into leases with tenants.
 
And yet what the vacancies say is "the rent is too high for the chains you want to attract". Not to mention, is any chain expanding right now?
 
CG: you are right. I was mixing my Saints when I should have been mixing my drinks. St. Francis it is. Woof. Patron saint of animals.

As to the "New York Suit Store", I'm surprised it lasted this long. It promised discount Canali, Corneliani, Pal Zileri. It delivered Jones, Lauren, Jack Victor. Nothing wrong with midrange, but certainly not at the prices on offer. You would get better deals on better stuff at the Back Bay Marshalls or the F.B. in Newton.
 
No landlord is going to admit defeat and willingly lower the gates for the rabble to occupy their space so willingly. It will take at least another fiscal year of recession before they ponder lower-end tenants (assuming there are any that can get financing to start new stores at that point).
 
Well Toby, looks like you are going to be getting some new neighbors. Hope you have the Welcome Wagon ready.

Boston Herald - January 7, 2009
Housing eyed for Downtown Crossing office building
By Thomas Grillo | Wednesday, January 7, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

While residential projects stall due to the financial crunch, one developer is bullish on converting a Downtown Crossing office building into apartments.

?This will be the only moderately priced rental building in the downtown,? said Harold Brown, chairman of the Hamilton Co., the Allston-based landlord who owns more than 2,300 units in Greater Boston.

Brown intends to transform the 12-story mid-rise at the corner of Winter and Washington streets into 51 apartments. In a shopping district where a 550-square-foot luxury studio apartment at the Archstone Boston Common on lower Washington fetches $2,855 and rents at the nearby Devonshire range from $2,200 to $4,300, Brown will offer one-bedrooms for $1,750 and two-bedrooms from $2,200.

?We bought the building a long time ago, so we don?t need the big rents to make the numbers work,? said Brown who paid $6.5 million for the property in 1982.

The news of apartments for Downtown Crossing comes on the heels of a decision by John B. Hynes to jettison plans for condominiums at One Franklin, the planned redevelopment of Filene?s, because he was unable to to secure financing amid a global credit crunch.

Rosemarie Sansone, president of the Downtown Crossing Partnership, hailed Brown?s decision as good news for the area. ?This is tremendous,? she said. ?As Suffolk University attracts new faculty and graduate students from out of town, think of the convenience.?

A recent report by Jones Lang LaSalle, a global commercial real estate firm, found that the vacancy rate for downtown Boston apartments has been steady in the low 4 percent range. The average asking rent is $2,200.

Brown expects to start work on the $18.5 million renovation on Winter Street by late summer.

?We will have no problem getting financing,? he said.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1143618
Click to expand...
 
This is the SW corner of Winter and Washington (So Good Jewelry), not the NW corner (The Corner Mall), right?
 
A one-bedrooms for $1,750 and a two-bedrooms from $2,200 might be considered a moderate price for that area (I think it definitly is), but that's hardly "moderate" for the entire city of Boston. Ouch!

Oh well, I guess you can't complain too much when someone's doing something right for a change, ie. expanding rental housing downtown. I just wonder what these units are going to end up looking like.
 
commuter guy said:
For example, I noticed something the other day on Bromfield St. Nearly all the vacancies on that street are in Druker managed buildings. Retail spaces managed by other landlords are nearly all occupied by mom and pop local type stores. Maybe the asking rents are too high at the Druker owned buildings?
Click to expand...

some of these Druker vacancies on Bromfield St. have been sitting vacant since I started law school at Suffolk next door in 1998!!! (well, to be completely accurate, 1999, was the first year of Suffolk's new law school building on Tremont and Bromfield). Yes, some stores have been vacant for 11 years. Something is not right when the same storefronts have been sitting vacant for more than a decade.
 
Ron Newman said:
This is the SW corner of Winter and Washington (So Good Jewelry), not the NW corner (The Corner Mall), right?
Click to expand...

I just went to the basement to get the digital camera out of the car so I could post some pictures of this building. The car battery is dead. The camera is in the trunk. The trunk is opened by an electic button. The car battery is in the trunk. There is no pull lever or cable in sight. The owner's manual is in the trunk too. Oh well.
 
If you have fold down rear seats, that usually helps in emergency access to the trunk.
 
I hate pulling seats out because it takes me months to get around to putting them back! Off to Wiki Answers I went. So cool. Got the trunk open and my camera, no chainsaw, no handgun, no fuss. Pictures tomorrow!
 
In any event, am I right that it's the So Good building and not the Corner Mall (Gilchrist)?
 
I do not believe it is the Corner Mall. Druker has a big fat office tenant on the upper floors...the Commonwealth! (DEP, DALA, etc.)
 
Ron, from what I can tell, the address is 6 Winter Street / 447 Washington Street and yes, the corner that's NOT the Corner Mall. 447 Washington is the building next to the "Dexter/Ditson" condo buliding, I believe (although it looks as though Mr. Ditson owned 447 Washington Street, at one time).
 
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