Ink Block (Boston Herald) | 300 Harrison Avenue | South End

Looking North from Traveler St
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Driving precast piles
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From Harrison Ave Bridge looking south
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That looks restrained, yet visually compelling. I'm excited.
 
According to the story, 60% of the units, or 49 apartments, have already been presold. That seems impressive...could anyone more familiar with the Boston condo/real estate market tell me whether or not I should be impressed? hah

It looks like a cool design too. Arborway said it well: "restrained, yet visually compelling".
 
^^It's not a surprise at all. There's such a dearth of condos available in this whole region right now--especially in the sexier neighborhoods (Back Bay, South End, etc.)--pre-construction sales have been brisk all over. I'd heard from a friend in real estate financing that 22 Liberty (Fan Pier residences) got started so quickly because of how fast they were able to pre-sell units there.

Don't be surprised when some of these luxury rental towers late to the game announce they'll be converting to condos before opening their doors... I personally think this would've been a smart call for Radian, but I digress.
 
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but can somebody explain to me the economic differences in building a luxury condo building vs luxury apartments? From what I can gather developers would rather have a luxury rental building, provided they can fill the units which doesn't always happen. When it comes to condos however, they will always be bought. I'm guessing developers prefer the rentals because they can profit continuously into the future as opposed to condos being a one time sale.

What I'm mostly wondering is what's better for the city's housing market, or does it even matter? It seems to me if condos are being snatched up, than that's what would be best for the city as it's where the demand is, and by trying to sell "luxury rentals" developers are just trying to squeeze as much out of they can out of their investment (ie being greedy). On the other hand, if the condos are just being bought out by foreign investors who don't live here or just rent out their place for similar obscene prices, that's not really helping the city either.
 
Putting up a condo building sucks from a liability standpoint. Instead of getting sued by one entity, there is the potential for every single unit to sue you for defects. The architect who taught my professional practice course absolutely refuses to work on condo projects.

For not new/luxury construction, IIRC you can't use historic preservation tax credit money on condos either, they have to be rentals. I don't think this applies to existing condo buildings, but you can't do a conversion. The same might apply to affordable housing tax credits.
 
From what I see here in NYC, condo buildings are built to a higher (more luxurious) standard than rental buildings (fancier lobbies, brand name health clubs, high end appliances, etc.). They can do this because condo developers get their money back faster as all the units are purchased, whereas rental buildings are an annuity stream in the form of rental payments over time.
 
Would add to the discussion that rental buildings become assets in a real estate investor's portfolio. So you can build something, get it rented out and sell it as an asset that kicks off an income stream, which is factored into its valuation. John Drew isn't going to simply sit on Waterside Place forever, he'll sell it to a REIT, a gigantic institutional investor or a real estate private equity fund capitalized by institutional investors. Pension funds, banks (on behalf of their clients now that we have the Volcker Rule), insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and the like. Not too different from an office building.
 
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Ink Block from Harrison Avenue in Residential Chinatown. Amazing how you cannot even see the Turnpike bridge in the streetscape.

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I'm not sure if this is actually part of the ink block development

This one I know is
 
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