Mandarin Oriental | 776 Boylston St | Back Bay

Friday, Nov. 24

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As is evidenced by the car in the last picture, East Ring Road has been re-opened, and the frame to the overpass is complete.
 
From today (Wednesday). Oh and the highest point on this building is 170 ft.

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A new (smallish) crane being erected







Eestern corner ready for concrete pour




And the facade mock-up for Saks

 
That 'new smallish crane' being erected looks like the material hoist. There will probably be a second one installed due to the way the buildings are split.
 
kz1000ps said:
And the facade mock-up for Saks

Click to expand...

Are they going to disguise Saks as a vent building for the Turnpike?
 
This building has far more impact on the Back Bay than any other recent building including 111 Huntigton Ave. For better or worse in one project we get major shadowing on Boylston street, a large new street wall, a nice screen for the crddy Pru center apartments among other things. Its ironic that this short building which was embraced by the neighbors does far more to change the look and feel of the neighborhood than the 600 footer proposed at the corner of Boylston and Mass Ave would have done. Maybe this will help people see the value of tall thin buildings that let in light and preserve views. I hope so. In the meantime, I pray that the exterior finish of the MO is of extremely high quality since there will be so much of it at eye level.
 
Shadows make me S.A.D. :cry:

The Globe said:
Buyer's remorse? $14.3m condo allegedly lacks light
The buyer of Boston's most expensive condominium is suing to get out of the deal

By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff | December 5, 2006

The buyer of Boston's most expensive condominium, the $14.3 million penthouse at the swank Residences at Mandarin under construction at the Prudential Center, sued the developers to get out of the deal, saying the unit doesn't have enough light.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court in Boston, the prospective buyer, Florida real estate developer Pritam Singh, said that Mandarin's proponents, CWB Boylston LLC, intentionally withheld information about how much light was available in the penthouse, and how much shadow was created by nearby buildings. Singh said the issue was "of critical importance" to himself and his wife and business partner, Ann Johnston, who suffers from seasonal affective disorder, which triggers depression in the dark winter months.

If the sale closed, the penthouse would be the most expensive residential property sale recorded in Boston history, according to a mid-November ranking by Listing Information Network, which tracks the downtown market. The 50-unit project, which will offer top-drawer hotel services to residents when it opens in 2008 including dog-sitting and delivery of raw steaks to residents' rooftop patios for grilling, has lured high-profile buyers such as car-dealership magnate Herb Chambers and one of the Boston Celtics owners, Robert Epstein. The project also includes a 149-room hotel.

One of the big draws at the Mandarin is partner Robin Brown, who in 14 years as general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel Boston built a reputation for service by pampering power brokers and celebrities.

The developers immediately fired back at Singh. The lawsuit "is nothing but a publicity scam by a sophisticated real estate developer to get his $3.3 million deposit back," Alan Eisner, a spokesman for Goulston & Storrs, CWB Boylston's attorneys, said in a statement yesterday. The statement said that CWB worked closely with Singh and with architects to address his concerns about lighting, and "and he knew exactly what he was buying." Singh signed a purchase and sale agreement for his unit in May 2005, and put down a $3.4 million deposit, the suit said. Since then, the median price of a condominium in the Boston areas has fallen 7 percent, though the luxury market remains strong.

Singh denied that he was backing out because of falling prices. "Condo prices go up and down," Singh, who grew up in Fitchburg, said in an interview yesterday."When I went to buy this I thought I was buying the best property in the city.

"This is Boston, and it's dark early," he said. "I can buy any place I want. Why would I buy a place that was dark? If you know it's going to be extensively in shadows you should tell someone." Singh is known for developing the Truman Annex, a former naval station, into a mixed-use and residential project in Key West.

Singh signed a purchase and sale agreement in May 2005 for the penthouse, which occupies nearly 7,000 square feet on Mandarin's top floor.

When he signed it, he paid a $3.4 million deposit to reserve the unit, the suit said. Singh is seeking to rescind his purchase contract with CWB, a partnership among developers Stephen Weiner and Julian Cohen and former hotelier Brown. Singh's suit said he wants his deposit back.

The prior record for a Boston condo sale, set in October 2003, was a $9.1 million for a unit on Commonwealth Avenue.

The suit said the sales brochures described light that would "flood through the windows" but they "vastly understated the nearly constant state of darkness which, for much of the year, will affect the exterior windows, gardens and porches of the unit." The developer did not disclose to Singh a study of shadows on the building that was prepared for the project's proposal to the city, he said.

CWB's spokesman, Eisner, said the study for the city was primarily concerned with the shadows caused by Mandarin itself, and there was "no reference in the study to shadows cast on individual units." Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.
Click to expand...
Link
 
wow

talk about buyer's remorse.

Be careful with those purchase and sale agreements. This is the best example of one coming back to bite you in the ass
 
Come on. Are they really that uneducated to go into a deal, where there are obviously 5+ light-blocking towers to the south, hoping for plenty of sun, only to later renege on the deal because they firsthand walked through their rooms and discovered otherwise? This should be obvious stuff considereing where there were looking.
 
Exactly

Yes, they would've walked around, presumably, and realized there was no light.

You said,

"Because they firsthand walked through their rooms ..."

They didn't - when they "walked around" in March, there was no unit there ... it was still a hole in the ground. He saw exactly what he saw when he put down his deposit.

Even now, no one would be allowed up inside the building, except construction crews.
 
Ah yes, my mistake. It was late and I wasn't entirely sober :D
 
tocoto said:
This building has far more impact on the Back Bay than any other recent building including 111 Huntigton Ave. For better or worse in one project we get major shadowing on Boylston street, a large new street wall, a nice screen for the crddy Pru center apartments among other things. Its ironic that this short building which was embraced by the neighbors does far more to change the look and feel of the neighborhood than the 600 footer proposed at the corner of Boylston and Mass Ave would have done. Maybe this will help people see the value of tall thin buildings that let in light and preserve views. I hope so. In the meantime, I pray that the exterior finish of the MO is of extremely high quality since there will be so much of it at eye level.
Click to expand...

Reviewing the original planned density for the Prudential complex, and what's been proposed over the years to keep Back Bay, Fenway and South End neighborhoods intact (i.e. all high construction constrained south of Boylston, west of Mass Ave and north of Huntington), a project like this is more palatable than the Millennium proposal. Millennium was of course north of Boylston and west of Mass Ave. Barely, but enough of a departure from the previous thirty years of planning and conversation that it caused protest (it didn't help that there was no outreach to the neighbors, but that's all for another day).

To listen to Richard (and a few others) drone on and on and on and on in these neighborhood meetings gives a very false impression that this part of Boston is militantly anti-construction ... of anything, from Apple to Oriental (recently he was talking about sidewalk markings and beeping walk signals and everything that's wrong with a project that is in the idea and discussion stages! There's not even an architect yet, just conversations along the lines of, "What if ...").

I think the concern is that the finished project serves, provides cohesion to, and lives well, within the context of the neighborhood, e.g. Hancock works in Copley Square but City Hall overwhelmed Scollay Square. The Millennium was a City Hall, not a Hancock.

Mandarin will be shadowy at certain times of the day, and will create a new street-scape, but that was always intended for that area. It's been "borrowed" time to not have a building there. I do think it will be the last "dense" building west of Park Square for a while.
 
who is Richard? I'm out of context here.

The Prudential complex has room to shoehorn in a couple of other buildings, along Exeter Street (or is it Ring Road?) and in front of the mall food court.
 
Richard (who's last name I cannot recall) is an awfully friendly, if somewhat doddy and slightly crazed NIMBY-ish resident of the Back Bay for the last 900 years or so. For example, when talking about the various options for Storrow Drive tunnel options and traffic impact on surrounding streets, he'd be the one to interrupt the presentation over whether environmentally sensitive humane rat traps would be placed every block or every half block ... and follow-up with how often they'd be checked.

Nice guy, with good intentetions. I think he realizes that progress happens, and some of that progress half the people won't like, but does his best to prolong the process by focusing on the some of the more obscure aspects of city development. If you ever get in a meeting with him, you'll know it.
 
Ohhh boy, recalling my experience at the meeting over the Apple Store, I know EXACTLY who you are talking about. Boy does he ever elicit a big ol' roll of the eyes.
 
From today's Portland Press Herald: pressherald.com

Buyer Wants Out Of $14 Million Condo Deal

BOSTON - A little sunlight can be worth a lot. Say $14.3 million.
The prospective buyer of Boston's most expensive condominium filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court to get out of the deal after putting down a deposit worth more than $3 million.
Real estate developer Pritam Singh alleged the CWB Boylston LLC, the developers of the Residences at Mandarin, misled him about how much light the 7,000-square-foot penthouse condo received.
The issue was more than aesthetic, Singh said, because his wife and business partner, Ann Johnston, has seasonal affective disorder, and her depression is exacerbated by a lack of sunlight.
Singh is from Brunswick, Maine, and developed a number of properties from Cape Elizabeth to Freeport.
A spokesman for CWB Boylston's lawyers, Goulston & Storrs, said in a statement that the lawsuit was a "publicity scam by a sophisticated real estate developer to get his $3.3 million back." The statement said CWB and Singh worked together to ensure the lighting was adequate. The median price of a condominium has fallen about 7 percent since Singh signed for the condominium in May 2005.
Singh told The Boston Globe that falling prices had nothing to do with his trying to back out of the deal.
"I can buy any place I want. Why would I buy a place that was dark? If you know it's going to be extensively in the shadows you should tell someone," the former Fitchburg resident said.
If the sale goes through, it will be the largest for a residential property in Boston's history, according to a ranking done in November by Listing Information Network. The Residences at Mandarin building, scheduled to open in 2008, will have 50 units and offer lavish concierge services such as rooftop food delivery and pet-sitting.
If Singh's suit is successful, the 2003 sale of a unit on Commonwealth Avenue for $9.1 million will remain the most expensive real estate transaction in the city's history.


Reader comments

Joe of New Gloucester, ME
Dec 7, 2006 10:28 AM
The real reason: "The median price of a condominium has fallen about 7 percent since Singh signed for the condominium in May 2005."

Sorry pal, bad investment. Too bad you signed the contract. He is done. Throw it out of the court.

JP
Dec 7, 2006 9:49 AM
Looks to me like Singh can't afford to buy it and isn't honest enough to admit it.

If Johnston really has seasonal affective disorder, there are a lot of places for the beautiful people (Like West Palm Beach) offering lots of sun, year round.

Kit of Portland, ME
Dec 7, 2006 9:30 AM
Maybe he needs the $$$ for the 30M oars.....

Tom Fassing of Saco, ME
Dec 7, 2006 8:54 AM
Boo Hoo, if you have all the money you say you do then go buy a suntan bed for every room in the new house.
 
My last update for a month. Maybe someone can take pics in early January?

Taken today, 14/12/06

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Jass I go by this building a couple times a week, so I've got things covered as well as my crappy cell cam will allow. But this is growing slowly (well, at laest in the vertical sense), so there might not even be any need to document it while you're gone.
 
Buildings like this (10 or so stories and are long) really add/make for great street wall.
 
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