Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail
I'm not going to weigh in on this statement from a transit perspective, but I'm in the multi-family apartment investment business. From a real estate investment perspective, you can only call such a station relocation absurd whining if it’s not your money at stake. Same is true from a town revenue perspective. In real estate, especially where transit proximity is concerned, a half mile can mean many thousands or even millions of dollars of value differential from one spot to another, depending on the size of properties involved.
The existing station itself is in Lakeville, by a few dozen yards, not Middleborough, but wherever exactly the proposed station would go, it seems certain to be over the line into Middleborough.
The apartments near the existing station WILL lose value if the station goes to the far side of 495. A half mile walk to a T stop is less than I do every day, but my walk is very pleasant. A walk past/under a 495 interchange, with narrow sidewalks under the overpass (good luck keeping those clear in snow storms), exit / entry ramps that in two places cross pedestrian paths without signalization, not fun. The rental market that far out from Boston is not so tight that renters just have to suffer whatever crap gets offered. Even if the pedestrian path were to be improved, apartment renters will be less willing to pay for those Lakeville apartments with the longer, nastier walk as compared to what they are currently willing to pay for the dramatically shorter and safer walk. I have access to brokers that could provide some reasonable estimate of the value loss. Since my firm thankfully is not invested in those complexes, I don’t need to do this, but I assure you it can be estimated, and the impact will be negative, and run at least into six figures for some of the apartment complexes. Ditto for the office buildings, even the ones with DEP or FBI branches in them – they’re privately owned, not publicly. The length of commercial leases being generally way longer than residential, it would very probably take longer for the impact to hit the office building valuations, but it’d hit. Very probably we’re looking at millions of dollars of negative impact when viewed collectively for all affected properties in Lakeville. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see at least the threat of a class-action takings lawsuit, and perhaps an actual one.
This negative impact to real estate values falls in Lakeville, lowering that town’s revenues. Will there be offsetting increased real estate values over in Middleborough, along with increased town revenues? Yes. Whether it’s an exact offset is impossible to estimate, could be less, could be more. But the political point is: the spot being left is in Lakeville, the new spot is in Middleborough. And the set of real estate owners getting the boost are not likely the same owners taking the loss. So the proposed station move pits towns against each other, and property owners against each other. Thanks for the fun new political hot potato, MassDOT!
Within the larger context? A lot of the operational arguments get deep into the weeds, and I bet most politicians don’t understand them. But this arbitrary shift of value and revenue from one town and one set of property owners to another town and set of property owners? This is visceral, and quantifiable, and will raise concerns throughout the greater Boston real estate community, as other investors / property owners ask “wait a minute, you’re going install a new station in 1997 and then relocate it less than a quarter century later?” With the time needed for the real estate market to react to new or expanded stations being what it is, that’s way too short a life span for a station location. It took a decade after the station opened for some of those apartments to appear, and now with only a decade of ops under their belt, they read that the station might move in another few years? This is one of the very worst things a government can do to a real estate environment: pull the rug out from under property owners after they've done something the government encouraged them to do.
If you consider this all absurd whining, well, it’s your opinion, but those with real money at stake are going to vehemently disagree. If you meet one of those apartment complex owners at a public meeting and call them a whiner, be prepared for some real blowback. And if you really want to see the Middleborough alternative happen, and if the public reps on the South Coast use your approach to this specific component of the plan, I’d just say: good luck!!! They’ll need it. I hope they’ve got better arguments than “absurd whining” lined up on all the other issues.
I'm not going to weigh in on this statement from a transit perspective, but I'm in the multi-family apartment investment business. From a real estate investment perspective, you can only call such a station relocation absurd whining if it’s not your money at stake. Same is true from a town revenue perspective. In real estate, especially where transit proximity is concerned, a half mile can mean many thousands or even millions of dollars of value differential from one spot to another, depending on the size of properties involved.
The existing station itself is in Lakeville, by a few dozen yards, not Middleborough, but wherever exactly the proposed station would go, it seems certain to be over the line into Middleborough.
The apartments near the existing station WILL lose value if the station goes to the far side of 495. A half mile walk to a T stop is less than I do every day, but my walk is very pleasant. A walk past/under a 495 interchange, with narrow sidewalks under the overpass (good luck keeping those clear in snow storms), exit / entry ramps that in two places cross pedestrian paths without signalization, not fun. The rental market that far out from Boston is not so tight that renters just have to suffer whatever crap gets offered. Even if the pedestrian path were to be improved, apartment renters will be less willing to pay for those Lakeville apartments with the longer, nastier walk as compared to what they are currently willing to pay for the dramatically shorter and safer walk. I have access to brokers that could provide some reasonable estimate of the value loss. Since my firm thankfully is not invested in those complexes, I don’t need to do this, but I assure you it can be estimated, and the impact will be negative, and run at least into six figures for some of the apartment complexes. Ditto for the office buildings, even the ones with DEP or FBI branches in them – they’re privately owned, not publicly. The length of commercial leases being generally way longer than residential, it would very probably take longer for the impact to hit the office building valuations, but it’d hit. Very probably we’re looking at millions of dollars of negative impact when viewed collectively for all affected properties in Lakeville. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see at least the threat of a class-action takings lawsuit, and perhaps an actual one.
This negative impact to real estate values falls in Lakeville, lowering that town’s revenues. Will there be offsetting increased real estate values over in Middleborough, along with increased town revenues? Yes. Whether it’s an exact offset is impossible to estimate, could be less, could be more. But the political point is: the spot being left is in Lakeville, the new spot is in Middleborough. And the set of real estate owners getting the boost are not likely the same owners taking the loss. So the proposed station move pits towns against each other, and property owners against each other. Thanks for the fun new political hot potato, MassDOT!
Within the larger context? A lot of the operational arguments get deep into the weeds, and I bet most politicians don’t understand them. But this arbitrary shift of value and revenue from one town and one set of property owners to another town and set of property owners? This is visceral, and quantifiable, and will raise concerns throughout the greater Boston real estate community, as other investors / property owners ask “wait a minute, you’re going install a new station in 1997 and then relocate it less than a quarter century later?” With the time needed for the real estate market to react to new or expanded stations being what it is, that’s way too short a life span for a station location. It took a decade after the station opened for some of those apartments to appear, and now with only a decade of ops under their belt, they read that the station might move in another few years? This is one of the very worst things a government can do to a real estate environment: pull the rug out from under property owners after they've done something the government encouraged them to do.
If you consider this all absurd whining, well, it’s your opinion, but those with real money at stake are going to vehemently disagree. If you meet one of those apartment complex owners at a public meeting and call them a whiner, be prepared for some real blowback. And if you really want to see the Middleborough alternative happen, and if the public reps on the South Coast use your approach to this specific component of the plan, I’d just say: good luck!!! They’ll need it. I hope they’ve got better arguments than “absurd whining” lined up on all the other issues.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, anybody still quoting the 2.3Bn figure is either into strawman arguments, likes long winded posts, or their girlfriend banged someone from the south coast and this is revenge. I'll leave it to you to tell us which one it is that applies to you.