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

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Re: Filene's

I doubt that the Midwood folks would plan to build as major a project as the recently announced replacement for Bromfield Pen store if the state of Filenes project was as precarious as some of you seem to think

"436,000-square-foot, 28-story building with 260 residential units. The building will consist of 23 floors of rental residential units, three floors of parking, and three floors of retail space. Total project cost is $200 million, according to the BRA"

Just diagonally across the street from the Filenes hole in the "Fabric of DTX"

I think the key to the vitality of the DTX area and in particular the success of the Filenes redevelopment is that it be surrounded by smaller-scale redevelopments of the existing buildings such as the late lamented Barnes and Noble with some new construction such as the New Bromfield Pen

Back when KW was nearly Mayor for Life we had a similar challenge with the redevelopment of the decaying Quincy Market complex. However within a few short years we had the new construction of the Marketplace Center and the Gundism of pseudo-faux-Faneuil Hall II. Later the nearby streets began to pick-up with money spent on the Millennium Bostonian, and other smaller projects.

I think Filene's (it will never never be known as 1 Franklin except on MLS listings of condos) and surroundings will start to have visible upward momentum in the next year or so (assuming the local economy and finances stay reasonably healthy).

Westy
 
Re: Filene's

Don't forget that Emerson and Suffolk now have a vested interest in this area.

A lot of the small building have been purchased by big investors - absentee landlords.

With these two new big projects I think you will see the owners actively making sure the area is keep nice.

If the Levin Family Trust still owns building hopefully they will soon sell.
 
Re: Filene's

I was playing devil's advocate with the above post... just things to think about.

Separate rumor and pitched/leaked news from actual press conferences and official press releases, and you'll find very little actual news on this project. The last article written about it was about how these projects can't get financing without tenants, and vice versa.

Digging up a site and then asking for help is a decades-tested tactic developers take throughout the country. See Columbus Center and Gaiety Theatre for your recent Boston examples.

I'm confident this will pull through because Gale has too much to lose at Seaport Square, but it's enough to make me just slightly nervous. This is, after all, Boston.
 
Re: Filene's

The Levin's were brought to court for the (near criminal as far as public safety) neglect of their properties and forced to sign over management of them to a 3rd party (Meredith & Grew). The Levin's decided it was in their best interest to rent or sell off the properties rather than risk losing them in court. That's a big reason why the whole block from the Paramount to the Carter Building (10 West Street) came into play in the last few years.
 
Re: Filene's

I really hate the One Franklin name especially as everyone knows that Filene's is actually located on Summer Street.
 
Re: Filene's

If this is going to be the exciting, multi-use, really innovative and vibrant development that it could be, the name cannot be that of an office tower.

Only in commercial real estate do all the established and proven basics of business, marketing and product launch strategy get thrown in the garbage.

I don't see that Gale has the history here - I mean, just look no further than "Seaport Square"... all I think of when I hear that name is some strip mall in Gloucester with a Blockbuster and a CVS with like a lighthouse or a ship's wheel logo - it doesn't exactly conjure up images of a 21st Century urban district of a major worldwide city at all.

Shouldn't the death of post-modern architecture also mean the death of the accompanying "old timey" names to match? Rowe's Wharf is a beautiful name because it fits the style of architecture and the brand that Leventhal was trying to promote, a "return to the waterfront days of yore".

If Seaport Square was a Po-Mo, wharfy, Disney-like creation of 1800s Boston, with maybe a faux-lighthouse for the tourists to climb for habor views, then the name "Seaport Square" would be a home run. But it isn't that, it's supposed to be modern and innovative and unlike anything we've ever seen before in this city.

The character of the property's communications should reflect the character of the architecture. In a perfect world, the branding agency works hand-in-hand with the architects to craft the image of the property. I'm guessing at Gale there is a disconnect there.
 
Re: Filene's

If I was looking for a place to live or do business I would meticulously check out the location, the amenities, price, square footage, quality of construction and transportation access.

What the place was called or how it was "branded" wouldn't even enter my mind. Unless it called something Harry's House O' Hookers, I just would. not. care.

I guess I'm not shallow enough.
 
Re: Filene's

^ people say that all the time about marketing, and yet all consumer behavior is driven by the relationship between the rational (numbers/figures/facts) and the emotional (feeling/image/intangibles) including whether you should move your law firm from the Financial District to Downtown Crossing. "But I'm a big-time Boston law firm, I can't have offices in seedy Downtown Crossing!" regardless of the $X/SF equation that plays out on a spreadsheet.

A guy who now works for a big Boston consulting group wrote a paper at MIT on the burgeoning real estate branding trade ten years ago - how people who sell real estate started to treat it like they were selling jeans or popsicles, and how the result was as much as 10-15% increased revenue.

The paper's available online (I believe hosted on MIT's Sloan site) but I'm too lazy to try to find it again. Boston's big branding/ad agency that does a lot of real estate has copies of it too.

Statler - everything from what you're wearing to the computer you're typing on is based on the same consumer behavior. Your rational side warring with your emotional side and in your case, the rational side trumping the emotional side. It doesn't make you "shallow" if you allow your emotional brain to trump your rational brain, in fact many great entrepreneurs have built their empires on these types of behaviors.
 
Re: Filene's

All these descriptive facts you cite about consumer behavior do nothing to diminish the stupidity of the concept of branding. Certainly I think some of the stuff you've posted in many of these threads is fascinating. Nevertheless...it's still pretty damn shallow to base one's consumption pattern on the misnaming of an office building. I thought rationality was a virtue?
 
Re: Filene's

I think the residential component will succeed in the long run if built. Regarding residential demand (or lack thereof) in DTX, I would suggest looking to One Devonshire located just down the street from this project between Washington Street and Devonshire as a potential case study. I don't know much about One Devonshire, but I think its luxury rental and I don't think its distressed. Also think of Tremont on the Common and the adjacent residential buildings constructed in recent past or the Millennium Towers which arguably are located in less desirable locations and all seem to be doing well.
 
Re: Filene's

Branding isn't shallow, it's a potent marketing strategy. By creating an attractive name, and connecting it to the image of the building, potential owners will choose the building with the fancy font and full color logo over the one with plain block letters. It also adds to the atmosphere of a building. By branding the building, an attractive logo or sign gets engraved into the glass doors. It adds to the architecture. Authors do this in books, they name the attractive characters attractive names. Barbara-Jo is an older, chubbier, southern woman, while Annabelle is the sleek, sexy, European model. It's just the way the mind works, whether it be a paradigm or a stereotype or what.
 
Re: Filene's

Blade - I'm thinking back to 1998... Palmer & Dodge made an unfathomable decision. They left the Financial District for the Prudential Center. It was major, major news in Boston real estate circles. Law firms that had "made it" had downtown office towers. Period. Lesser law firms had offices elsewhere.

However, what Palmer & Dodge got was a spanking new office tower in the Prudential Center (the R2D2 building 111 Huntington) because they were able to tell their employees that the excitement and 24/7-vibe of the Prudential Center was worth it. They did not leave the Financial District for 10 St. James, 500 Boylston, 222 Berkeley or 119 Huntington - Back Bay towers with room to let. They couldn't do it - they'd be seen as a "lesser law firm" but by moving to the Prudential Center, one of Boston's first branded developments, they were able to sell their employees. They were way ahead of their time, and looking back at the transaction, you can see the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain working together.

That's all I'm saying. Everyone finds branding so unpalatable - tawdry even. And yet, all consumer behavior is generally the same from buying sneakers to deciding which car to drive to choosing where to lease 200,000 SF of office space.

You have to placate the rational side, while stimulating the emotional side.

To me, One Franklin is just a cheaper, lesser office building than One Federal, One PO Square, or One International Place. It would be hard to convince my employees that moving from the Financial District to DTX would be a good, rational idea - even if the dollars and cents make sense.

To my employees, it's purely emotional. "I no longer work in the Financial District, we moved to DTX, I guess to save money on rent, we aren't a premier firm." - a totally irrational thought, but one that employees get all the time.

Talk to anybody who works at JP Morgan right now. Morale is in the basement. They are moving to the Seaport. Rationally, a smart move. Emotionally? The employees are getting their resumes together so they can stay in the Financial District and work at one of the "premiere financial district" investment banks.

Am I making sense? Sorry! End of the day has me exhausted. I got into this based on a huge project in Miami - they do things differently down there and I actually find it fascinating. I worked with Boston's big branding shop here in Boston and got a further education.
 
Re: Filene's

There is a big difference between choosing between consumer products such as a Polo jacket vs a Bob's Bargain brand jacket or between an iPod vs an Apple Computer Company Personal Music Player and choosing a place to live/work.
I agree about a law firm setting up in Downtown Crossing, but that's a matter of location, not branding. You can call DTX whatever the hell you want, but if still looks like a crumbling set of downmarket shops, you are just putting lipstick on a pig. Alternately, you can call the Back Bay "Sullivan's Swamp" and if you don't change a brick, people will still be lining up to pay millions of dollars to live there.
 
Re: Filene's

Sorry....after thoughtfully considering both sides, I'm going to go with Pelhamhall here. If branding wasn't important to residential real estate, then properites SW of Mass Ave wouldn't be listed as South End, and as someone who recently rented out his Comm Ave. condo in Back Bay, I found it very frustrating explaining the premium I was charging to people moving to the city who couldn't understand why other "Back Bay" properties they found of Craigslist were considerably less expensive.....perhaps because they're really in Fenway or South End, but the Back Bay name sells.
 
Re: Filene's

Law firms that had "made it" had downtown office towers. Period. Lesser law firms had offices elsewhere.

Wow. Talk about way off-base. I know several young attorneys that work downtown and make dirt, whereas others working in towns like Bedford, Lowell, and Westford are doing pretty well for themselves, considering their time out of law school and overall trial/work experience.

I think that yuppie scum are the type that care the most about that downtown locale above all else.

Evelyn: Well, you hate that job anyway. Why don't you just quit? You don't have to work.
Bateman: Because I want...to fit...in.
 
Re: Filene's

I was talking about 1998, and I was talking about prevailing attitudes in the law community. Of course it's shallow - I'm talking about lawyers!

But the war of the rational side of the brain ("I can save $8/SF") vs. the emotional ("what does it say about Dewey Cheatem & Howe to have a Woburn address?") is the divide upon which the entire marketing industry is built.
 
Re: Filene's

Toby - you're already getting your commission check for "Shadow on the Commons"

To bring us back to architecture... I think the architecture here is very "bla" -another flat-topped glass and steel box - and when coupled with the old fashioned, corporate-style branding, the property isn't being afforded the credit that it's due as an incredible, forward-thinking, transformational development block right in the heart of the city.

If you don't believe in "branding" look no further than two blocks away and ask yourself (in the late 1990s) who would ever have thought somebody would buy a high-luxury condo in the Combat Zone?

The pundits back then said "I don't care what you name it, or how you brand it, luxury buyers will NOT buy in the Combat Zone. Branding can't help a bad development idea"

Then re-brand that same development "The Ritz-Carlton" and watch the values explode. If those towers, with the same restaurants, gym/spa, theater amenities, had opened as "One & Two Avery Place" with an old-fashioned, Boston-real-estate-style brand image, would the development have been so successful in such a pioneering (especially back then) location?
 
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