Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

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dirtywater said:
This doesn't work.... it does not account for the portion of the height attributable to the mechanical penthouse which sits above the last occupiable floor (i.e., the 56th floor). If the reports that the height is 625 feet to the top of the last occupiable floor are accurate, then the simple math is 48/56 x 625, which comes to 535 feet.
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type001 said:
Here's is another tidbit of info... The Millennium tower is about 25 feet higher in elevation than 1 Fed, 100 Fed, Fed Reserve, and 1 Financial.
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DW, I think you are right, especially if the elevation info is correct. It looks deceptively tall from a lot of places, especially further off like Arlington where it's passing the Fed. The good news is, this is going to look taller than I was anticipating!

It's 49 full floors with 35 glass. Hawley side core is pushing into 50. Pics are on the way.
 
^^^Beeline, I really like the one with the GW statue.

From 8/13, Part 1 of 3















 
Enjoy the honeymoon of this going up now because when 5 more of these are going up (not to mention 1 Dalton and Copley Pl) people are going to seriously start reconsidering building soaring condos for Chinese investors who want to place for there infants to live when they send them to MIT (or, ya know, Russian oligarchs). NYC is dealing with this now on 57th St (I hope Boston passes a law soon that band anonymous LLCs buying conods for shady billionaires to hide behind).

I know so many people on this board are pro-skyscraper without actually considering the consequences but this really is a game changer for Boston; good and bad it will change DTX by itself. Boston is, what?, the third most expensive city after San Fran and NYC in the US; I hope Walsh has more up his selves than DeBlasio in terms of dealing with the Ultra Rich vs. the working classes, not to mention the poors.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Enjoy the honeymoon of this going up now because when 5 more of these are going up (not to mention 1 Dalton and Copley Pl) people are going to seriously start reconsidering building soaring condos for Chinese investors who want to place for there infants to live when they send them to MIT (or, ya know, Russian oligarchs). NYC is dealing with this now on 57th St (I hope Boston passes a law soon that band anonymous LLCs buying conods for shady billionaires to hide behind).

I know so many people on this board are pro-skyscraper without actually considering the consequences but this really is a game changer for Boston; good and bad it will change DTX by itself. Boston is, what?, the third most expensive city after San Fran and NYC in the US; I hope Walsh has more up his selves than DeBlasio in terms of dealing with the Ultra Rich vs. the working classes, not to mention the poors.
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"Pro-skyscraper without considering the consequences"... again, the vast, vast majority of the skyscrapers in this city were built over 30 years ago, during the Mayor White administration ('68--'84).

There are certainly some significant residential-centric skyscrapers in the pipeline--1 Bromfield, Winthrop Sq. garage tower, TD Garden tower, One Congress St., etc.

There are also many residential skyscrapers already in DTX, Back Bay, West End before MTower came along. Ritz towers, 660 Washington, 1 Devonshire, Kensington, W Hotel condos, One Devonshire Pl., Longfellow Towers, etc., etc., an endless list.

Any particular reason why MTower gets singled out as "game-changey" over that very long list?

And it's worth repeating that all of Beacon Hill, vast, vast swathes of Back Bay, and vast, vast swathes of South End are skyscraper-insulated until/unless something radical happens.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Enjoy the honeymoon of this going up now because when 5 more of these are going up (not to mention 1 Dalton and Copley Pl) people are going to seriously start reconsidering building soaring condos for Chinese investors who want to place for there infants to live when they send them to MIT (or, ya know, Russian oligarchs). NYC is dealing with this now on 57th St (I hope Boston passes a law soon that band anonymous LLCs buying conods for shady billionaires to hide behind).

I know so many people on this board are pro-skyscraper without actually considering the consequences but this really is a game changer for Boston; good and bad it will change DTX by itself. Boston is, what?, the third most expensive city after San Fran and NYC in the US; I hope Walsh has more up his selves than DeBlasio in terms of dealing with the Ultra Rich vs. the working classes, not to mention the poors.
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How are we "building" them anything? They're paying, and by putting absentee owners in tall towers you keep them from buying up tony neighborhoods like the Back Bay and sucking the life out of that. And we get a nice building out of it.

Increasing the housing stock may not bring prices down all that much, but it can't really hurt anything.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Boston is, what?, the third most expensive city after San Fran and NYC in the US; I hope Walsh has more up his selves than DeBlasio in terms of dealing with the Ultra Rich vs. the working classes, not to mention the poors.
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This is kind of a red herring, in that downtown residential is going to be the most unaffordable no matter what you build. (unless downtown is a dump, and ours isn't)

To solve this crisis, we need more dense housing in places like Cambridge, Somerville, Southie, Dorchester, Quincy... Essentially, we need more housing in places where the working class SHOULD be able to afford it.

Nothing wrong with having a few nice new towers downtown to pull the eye away from the 70's and 80's boxes.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Enjoy the honeymoon of this going up now because when 5 more of these are going up (not to mention 1 Dalton and Copley Pl) people are going to seriously start reconsidering building soaring condos for Chinese investors who want to place for there infants to live when they send them to MIT (or, ya know, Russian oligarchs). NYC is dealing with this now on 57th St (I hope Boston passes a law soon that band anonymous LLCs buying conods for shady billionaires to hide behind).

I know so many people on this board are pro-skyscraper without actually considering the consequences but this really is a game changer for Boston; good and bad it will change DTX by itself. Boston is, what?, the third most expensive city after San Fran and NYC in the US; I hope Walsh has more up his selves than DeBlasio in terms of dealing with the Ultra Rich vs. the working classes, not to mention the poors.
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5 more of these? I'll take it. :D
 
DZH22 said:
This is kind of a red herring, in that downtown residential is going to be the most unaffordable no matter what you build. (unless downtown is a dump, and ours isn't)

To solve this crisis, we need more dense housing in places like Cambridge, Somerville, Southie, Dorchester, Quincy... Essentially, we need more housing in places where the working class SHOULD be able to afford it.

Nothing wrong with having a few nice new towers downtown to pull the eye away from the 70's and 80's boxes.
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Agreed. Residental towers on the peripheries of the T would be cheaper and easier to build, allowing for more affordable condos. Unfortunately people are strongly opposed to building large residental buildings outside of the downtown core (and even then they face strong opposition).
 
"Skyscraper" condo buildings proposed, approved, under construction

* Millennium Tower
* One Dalton
* Copley Simon
* TD Garden

One Congress is a dense, mid-rise development, 1 Bromfield is 28-stories, TransNational might still be commercial ...
 
Equilibria said:
How are we "building" them anything? They're paying, and by putting absentee owners in tall towers you keep them from buying up tony neighborhoods like the Back Bay and sucking the life out of that. And we get a nice building out of it.

Increasing the housing stock may not bring prices down all that much, but it can't really hurt anything.
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Nobody on here is a billionaire (right? Lol) so the only thing we are ever going to experience is the ground level. This used to be a hole in dtx now its a new piece of the puzzle towards reviving it . On top of that we get some blue glass downtown to kinda take the eye away from the welcome to 1970 I mean Boston architecture we have here.

On top of that in my eyes a powerful city should have the full spectrum. One that you can truely go from the bottom to the top. Everything from the projects to top floor condos. Where a homeless guy living in a bathroom invents something new and now lives in a top floor multi million dollar condo. That part is just my opinion but Chicago, LA, NY come to mind.
 
Definitely some good questions. I often wonder if and how much new luxury development creates induced demand for housing. Would as many international buyers be buying here if we didn't have the new construction luxury housing? Would people be converting more old buildings and if so, would those same buyers actually want it?
 
Let me tell you how it can hurt:

If you are focused on building for the top 1% that pushes the price up for all apartments below that threshold due to a lack of new stock. This in turn keeps people who would normally buy a starter apartment renting and this forces the rents up for everyone below. I witnessed this first hand when working as a realtor in NYC. Granted I think Boston is more serious about dealing with affordable housing but it is still a huge problem.
 
There are ~280,000 units of residential housing in Boston. There are 442 units at Millennium Tower. if we build "5 of them" as you suggest, that's 2,210 units.

So, we're building < 1% of the housing for the 1%.

:O)
 
The real problem is that more housing isn't being built. If you're smart (which I know you are), what you really mean is, "we need 20,000 units of housing. If only 2,000 units get built, we shouldn't cater it only to the richest of the rich, but rather a mix of income levels." To which I would respond that the problem is not who our limited new housing is being built for, but rather the problem is that there is such a limited amount of new housing being built.
 
bigeman312 said:
The real problem is that more housing isn't being built. If you're smart (which I know you are), what you really mean is, "we need 20,000 units of housing. If only 2,000 units get built, we shouldn't cater it only to the richest of the rich, but rather a mix of income levels." To which I would respond that the problem is not who our limited new housing is being built for, but rather the problem is that there is such a limited amount of new housing being built.
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But housing is being built. Maybe not as fast as we want, but I think it's getting there. Seaport alone has almost 1800 units just completed or u/c and coming up in the next couple of years.
 
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