Pierce Boston (née The Point )| Boylston St/Brookline Av | Fenway

Starting this summer, for a few months, Pierce will hold the title of "Top Crane"
 
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4/17
First floor is starting in the front corner
 
I'm so excited to watch this view change over the next couple of years...

 
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Thanks for the updates. I look at the webcam for this one daily. The garage area is finally fully filled in up to the ground level. It looks like they may be just starting to go vertical there. Hopefully this speeds up substantially once they get that first fully-formed interconnected floor!
 
Does anyone know which of the renders will be the final design for this building? Their website shows both the original render, as well as the other one that shows the facades with different angles sticking out like modular pieces are sitting on top of each other. I like the original much better, but don't know which is final.
 
Deetroyt said:
Does anyone know which of the renders will be the final design for this building? Their website shows both the original render, as well as the other one that shows the facades with different angles sticking out like modular pieces are sitting on top of each other. I like the original much better, but don't know which is final.
Click to expand...

^All the renders on their website show the same building. It looks a bit more "squared off" on the picture with the skyline in the background, but it's the same building as the other pictures....those slight angular projection features are hard to see. (I'm sure someone on here knows the technical name-it looks like an inverted setback) Count up 7 floors from the bottom and you can see where the first wall "projection" is, then up another 11 floors to the next wall "projection". (it looks like white "flashing" trim)
 
lapradetom said:
^All the renders on their website show the same building. It looks a bit more "squared off" on the picture with the skyline in the background, but it's the same building as the other pictures....those slight angular projection features are hard to see. (I'm sure someone on here knows the technical name-it looks like an inverted setback) Count up 7 floors from the bottom and you can see where the first wall "projection" is, then up another 11 floors to the next wall "projection". (it looks like white "flashing" trim)
Click to expand...

Thanks for point that out to me. From the picture with the skyline view, I had thought the front of the building was flat and the other pictures showed a different design.
 
I'm very curious to see how this will look from other points of the city and what other projects height wise this may bring to the Fenway area.
 
12345 said:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...QWnIXMupBXJ/story.html?event=event25#comments
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Manhattan receives a very strong signal that the cycle is nearing it's end....

Couldn't make this work for condo's.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/articl...ld-to-saudi-group-will-remain-an-office-tower

i read a story a couple of days ago that makes the point in stunning detail.

No joy finding it, so this will have to do....

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/articl...other-sign-the-luxury-condo-market-is-cooling

The overall market for Manhattan homes remained strong during the first quarter of this year despite the luxury segment cooling off, according to a number of reports released Friday.

However, the $1.1 million median price reported by Douglas Elliman Real Estate—up 17% from the same time a year earlier and the second-highest on record—was artificially inflated by a slew of new development contracts closing during the first three months of the year. Those deals, which also pushed the average price to new heights, were likely inked more than 12 months earlier.

"I think of the market as three broad areas all performing in different ways," said Jonathan Miller, whose appraisal firm, Miller Samuel, prepared the report for Douglas Elliman. "And the further down in price you go, the more intense the demand is."

The luxury portion of the market, which Miller considers the top 10% of all sales based on price, has slowed by many accounts. Despite a number of new projects coming online in the past year, the number of sales increased by a mere 8%, while the number of units on the market fell as developers of new buildings opted to keep homes off the market.

The trend was even starker for apartments in newly constructed buildings, many of which also fall into the luxury category. Even though developers built an estimated 5,500 units in 2015, there were fewer units being marketed in the first quarter of 2016 compared to a year ago. That decline in active listings, which fell by 44%, was largely due to sellers keeping new units off of the market in response to the sluggish pace of contract signings in recent quarters, according to Miller.

The median price for new developments jumped by more than 60% compared to a year earlier, but this was more of a reflection of the market at the time the contracts were signed during headier days in late 2014 and early 2015. Now it's a different story.

"I think on the higher end, buyers are balking a bit on the pricing and looking for deals," said Pamela Liebman, chief executive of the Corcoran Group, which also released a report Friday. "Prices have been going up for so many quarters in a row it is not unusual for them to take a breath."

But the opposite was true in the resale market, which makes up more than three-quarters of all transactions in New York City. There, buyers quickly snapped up lower priced units. In fact, the largest share of sales during the first quarter were for homes priced between $500,000 and $1 million, according to Corcoran.

And inventory increased by double digits as more owners opted to cash in on what the Douglas Elliman report showed was steady price growth: The median price for resales reached $950,000 at the end of the first quarter, a 7.3% increase compared to a year before.

Going forward, real estate experts believe the lower-end and resale markets will remain strong. But developers at the high end of the market need to be willing to price their apartments appropriately in order to move units.

"The real sellers have made adjustments to what was unrealistic pricing," said Andrew Heiberger, chief executive at brokerage firm Town Residential, who said that more developers will likely begin following suit for homes that have sat on the market.
 
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Would you mind telling us what the article says since it is behind a paywall so I am assuming quite a few people on this website myself included won't be able to see what you are talking about. All I can see is that the Sony building sold for 1.3 billion.

Thanks for the link to the second link but that only shows that the NYC market may be cooling off and despite geographic proximity that does not mean the Boston market is cooling off or following the same trends they are separate markets. Just wondering if anyone has good evidence of things cooling off in Boston? I haven't seen much that indicates a change from the past 2 or 3 years.
 
Crains....

A subsidiary of Saudi investment conglomerate Olayan Group has acquired the Sony Building for $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion. The Real Deal first reportedm the transaction Monday. Olayan American, along with Chelsfield Group, a London-based property investment company, bought the 850,000-square-foot office tower at 550 Madison Ave. from Chetrit Group and Clipper Equity. Chelsfield will have a minority stake in the property.

Chetrit and Clipper, which bought the Sony Building for $1.1 billion in 2013, planned to convert the officer tower into luxury condos and a hotel. They expected to sell units for $4,000 a square foot. That plan has been abandoned by the new owners, who will maintain the Sony Building as a commercial space.


Bloomberg,

By Oshrat Carmiel and David M. Levitt Bloomberg News April 26, 2016

NEW YORK — Developers who had planned to convert the Sony Building in Manhattan into ultra-luxury condominiums — including one listed at $150 million — have agreed to sell the tower for more than $1.4 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Investors Joseph Chetrit and David Bistricer have abandoned the condo proposal and are under contract to sell the building, at 550 Madison Ave., to a partnership led by Olayan Group, a Saudi Arabian investment firm, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the transaction was still private.

Chetrit and Bistricer acquired the Midtown property, once Sony Corp.’s US headquarters, for $1.1 billion in 2013.

The buyers intend to keep the building as office space, according to a statement by Chelsfield Group Ltd., Olayan’s London-based partner on the deal, that did not disclose the price.

Plans to convert the 37-story tower into condos got under way just as a boom in construction of high-end Manhattan homes was showing signs of leading to an oversupply. The developers of the project — where an eight-bedroom apartment for $150 million would have been New York City’s most expensive listing ever — faced competition from at least six other ultra-luxury towers that are under construction in Midtown, all of them aimed at the world’s wealthiest investors.

The Sony condo plan “felt like it missed the window,” said Jonathan Miller, president of the New York appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc., which wasn’t connected to the sale or the conversion proposal.

“This project came online at the tail end of the acquisition euphoria, and it seems prudent to move on,” he said.

The building is nestled within other Midtown towers of similar heights. That would have made it a challenge for the developers to get prices comparable to other projects in the area, such as Vornado’s 220 Central Park South and Zeckendorf Development LLC’s 520 Park Ave., which charge a premium for their unobstructed views of Central Park, Miller said.

A spokeswoman for Chetrit said the developer wasn’t immediately available to comment. A representative of Olayan declined to comment beyond Chelsfield’s statement.

The transaction was first reported earlier Monday by the Real Deal.

Sony, which had vacated the 850,000-square-foot building on Madison Avenue between 55th and 56th streets, paid rent to the Chetrit partnership until just last week, according to the person with knowledge of the sale.

The new owners will be taking possession of a mostly empty building — just as Midtown is expected to see a jump in large-office vacancies.

By 2017, about 21 million square feet of Midtown’s Class A space, or about 14 percent of the market, will probably be available, as tenants no longer faithful to Manhattan’s priciest office district fan out across the city, according to an analysis by the brokerage Savills Studley Inc.

Douglas Harmon, senior managing director at Eastdil Secured LLC, represented the sellers in the deal.

Yoron Cohen at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. represented the buyers.
 
^ Those articles are talking about $150 million units and average prices of $4,000 / sqft. That is ultra-luxury and it has just about nothing to do with Boston's housing market.
 
Possibly. But, with respect, i think overall, New York most certainly does affect Boston. I'm not an expert. But, it seems intuitive to me. And while the present cycle is unprecidented... and while i'm as sure as anyone, it WAS TIME – a good number of these big projects are coming late. A year from now, we might be calling some of them very late.

Our city's approval and final permitting process is abysmal. We should have a 2 week public hearing on Back Bay Station, and bring the banks on the last day, and the cranes the day after. I'm not sure if half the time the BRA isn't faking; wasting months/years adrift in the nimby horse lattitute 'process' on pre-approved projects such as BBS. Show the numbers, add 30% for station cost over-runs for actually, making it viable... front shelf the needed tax-relief and build it already.

Emperor Menino and our current process left Boston in an extended period of under-supply not just when the current market cycle turned, but presently. i believe a 'topped' high end market in New York, and luxury markets in Chicago, LA, SF, Miami, not only could affect bank's fervor to finance projects, but demand for completed units.

Maybe it's wishful thinking that foreign investors would have absorbed more of the risk by buying into our luxury condo market, and leaving developers to move to the next project. I like the idea of wealthy medium-term investors allowing modest supply to remain after the next down market turns back up... Is it unrealistic that investor fervor would have made a significant difference for our local developers, if say 1 Dalton and 111 Fed were already topped? Perhaps.

Boston has never experienced 'ghost towers' like Atlanta, Houston, Austin or Charlotte. Of course, if we did, we'd never hear the end of it from the anti-development crowd... But, we're so slow, we might never get half these proposed/approved towers going +140m started.
 
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