MIT Museum/Book Store | née Boeing | 314 Main St. | Kendall Square

Both cranes have jumped this week. The core is also about one floor from topping out.
 
stellarfun said:
Why would Capital One, a retail banker, need three floors??? Is this Capital One's R&D shop?
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It's not a retail banker - it's a bank and credit card company. They have a TON of office workers. Just finished a new dedicated 400' tower in Virginia.
 
Equilibria said:
It's not a retail banker - it's a bank and credit card company. They have a TON of office workers. Just finished a new dedicated 400' tower in Virginia.
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I know they have money to burn. They paid $51+ million for three now-connected building(s) in the link below. The ones on the corner with maroon placards in the windows. Bought it from UnderArmour.

https://goo.gl/maps/KPXHtzrFM1S2

But any bank who pays Kendall rents for back office space is lurching toward insolvency or laundering money.
 
stellarfun said:
I know they have money to burn. They paid $51+ million for three now-connected building(s) in the link below. The ones on the corner with maroon placards in the windows. Bought it from UnderArmour.

https://goo.gl/maps/KPXHtzrFM1S2

But any bank who pays Kendall rents for back office space is lurching toward insolvency or laundering money.
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Would you make that comment about Bank of America? State Street? Fidelity? Capital One is on that level.
 
Equilibria said:
It's not a retail banker - it's a bank and credit card company. They have a TON of office workers. Just finished a new dedicated 400' tower in Virginia.
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The financial services industry also employs a ton of tech workers. There's surely very sophisticated software and infrastructure (especially security-related stuff) that powers Capital One's whole back end. I'm just guessing here, but the workers they hire in Kendall will probably focus on that.
 
Equilibria said:
Would you make that comment about Bank of America? State Street? Fidelity? Capital One is on that level.
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Yes, I would if they were plunking back office functions there.

The sense of being at a historical crossroads has meant that Cambridge now competes with midtown Manhattan as the priciest commercial real estate market in the country. Average office rents in the third quarter were $82.23 a square foot, according to commercial real-estate firm CBRE Group Inc., just a hair behind $82.51 a square foot in midtown. East Cambridge, where Kendall Square sits, is more expensive than its New York counterpart on average, CBRE said, and laboratory space in Cambridge rented at an average of $85.10 a square foot in the quarter.
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http://realestate.boston.com/news/2...ston-birthed-biotech-boom-real-estate-empire/
 
stellarfun said:
Yes, I would if they were plunking back office functions there.
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I think you are being pretty dismissive of all "back office functions." I suspect this office will be full of computer scientists, data scientists, and engineers.
 
fattony said:
I think you are being pretty dismissive of all "back office functions." I suspect this office will be full of computer scientists, data scientists, and engineers.
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I am more dismissive of some than others.

Capital One has 130 software engineer openings, 100 of which are in Virginia; read Tysons Corner, McLean, Richmond. Of 88 openings for Data Science, 65 are in Virginia. There are three IT-related openings in Massachusetts. IMO, Capital One is seeking people with a very particular (and relatively narrow) skill set, and it does not expect to find them (in significant numbers) elsewhere. Its simply not going to find machine learning engineers traipsing the streets of Richmond.
 
Good credit card fraud detection takes cutting edge AI. So too does the future of who gets which offers.
 
Arlington said:
Good credit card fraud detection takes cutting edge AI. So too does the future of who gets which offers.
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Not to mention, Capital One is more tech-focused than many of the other big banks. So much of their business model has been built around online banking and the online user experience. Targeted offers and fraud detection are a big deal, but I would wager that much more of it is continuing to expand online offerings, improving compatibility with other tech-based and online products, improve cyber security, etc. It's not a small thing to have Capital One's name attached to the launch of a major new or updated smartphone, wearable, etc. Being in Kendall and having access to both MIT and the other tech companies in the area is definitely appealing to a bank like Capital One.
 
I love the Boeing move.

From the link in the first post:

“MIT’s president, L. Rafael Reif, has made clear his objective of reducing the time it takes to move ideas from the classroom and lab out to the market. The power of proximity is a dynamic that propels this concept forward: Just as pharmaceutical, biotech, and tech sector scientists in Kendall Square work closely with their nearby MIT colleagues, Boeing and MIT researchers will be able to strengthen their collaborative ties to further chart the course of the aerospace industry.”

With the robust defense/aerospace industry here this consolidation in Kendall makes perfect sense for that next leap. With GE aviation in Lynn and GE’s move to fort point along with their massive partnership in providing engines to Boeing jets this has to be another huge benefit to having everybody in the same “ecosystem”.

Also this wind tunnel project is awesome to see, things like this are incredibly valuable to keeping our academics ahead of the curve and not just resting on our laurels:

“Earlier this year, Boeing announced that it will serve as the lead donor for MIT’s $18 million project to replace its 80-year-old Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel. This pledge will help to create, at MIT, the world’s most advanced academic wind tunnel.”
 
stellarfun said:
I know they have money to burn. They paid $51+ million for three now-connected building(s) in the link below. The ones on the corner with maroon placards in the windows. Bought it from UnderArmour.

https://goo.gl/maps/KPXHtzrFM1S2

But any bank who pays Kendall rents for back office space is lurching toward insolvency or laundering money.
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Wtf?! They are an extremely conservative lender and their current strength might be owing to the fact that they were relatively unscathed in the last recession.
 
Jouhou said:
Wtf?! They are an extremely conservative lender and their current strength might be owing to the fact that they were relatively unscathed in the last recession.
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Capital One paid $5720 a square foot for a small commercial building for which they (Capital One Cafe) will be the only tenant. The previous record for commercial building (retail) in DC was for a building housing a Starbucks at $1620 a square foot (sale in 2014).

The neighborhood is convinced they bought it for billboard purposes. Chase just leased the building next to it.
 
That parking lot between the Kendall Hotel and MIT's E17 loading docks is looking more and more out of place...
 
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