Re: Hayward Place
At the end of the chain, the last buyer is presumably a developer who plans to build. So the question becomes, who are the flipping middle men, and how do we get rid of them?
i think there are two clear paths to development in Boston:
1) you are the developer and the end user
a) you hire the architect,
b) arrange the financing
c) / d) get the permits / meet with the neighborhood
e) and then you build
Examples: MFA, various universities, Liberty Mutual, the Commonpoor, City or the Feds -- these are straightforward unless you don't own the land
2) you are a spec developer who owns some land
a0) you create a marketing plan to find a customer giving you a positive ROI
a) you hire the architect,
b) arrange the tentative financing -- contingent on finding the tenant(s) generating the positive ROI
c) / d) get the permits / meet with the neighborhood
e) you keep looking until you find the tenant -- or if it wont pan out -- you sell to another developer who restarts the process
f) if you get past e) then you can build
All of the stuff being built today in Boston / Cambridge is either:
a type 1) e.g. BU, Northeastern, Mass Art, Liberty Mutual, etc.
or a type 2) with a customer already in place such as a 610 Main in Cambridge being built by MIT's real estate division for Pfizer or Fan Pier being built for Vertex
All the rest are type 2)s in search of the tenant9s0 generating the positive ROI or if not feasible in search of bailout or a buyer -- e.g. the various housing proposals
Since condos are not selling the only housing likely to be built near-term are either apartments or some kind of subsidy / tax deal