Potential Cabot Yard Air Rights | South Boston

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Senator Nick Collins and Representative David Biele of South Boston want to see if the latest prize in Boston’s hot real estate market can be found at the edge of their neighborhood: above the MBTA’s sprawling Cabot Yard. They sent a letter to MBTA general manager Steve Poftak on Tuesday that urges the T to issue a “request for information” to the development community, to evaluate leasing air rights above the tracks.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...ory.html?p1=Article_Recommended_ReadMore_Pos1
 
THIS is a whole lot more sensible a move than 3 years of navel-gazing over Widett Circle and trying to make something via tactical nuclear strike out of a location that's currently nothing. The blocks over Cabot are ideally positioned to help join the Financial District to Southie with infill between South Station & Broadway, and to join Broadway & Ink Block by infilling as much as possible on either side of I-93. The former is further accentuated by the state (someday???) getting its act together on the tortured SSX project and finally opening up Dot Ave. to row-building redev. And unlike all the chefs stirring the pot on Widett pitted between camps of trying to help the T's storage needs vs. trying to hurt the T out of NIMBY'ing...this one is completely beneficial to the T because of the new revenue infusion, non-invasiveness to the ground-level transpo usage, and fact that they have already maxed out all use of the ground acreage leaving no remaining self-planning guesswork ever on these particular parcels.


The Traveler-W. 4th block is fully rectangular and centrally located. It has a complete elevated street grid on 2 sides, with potential for the west-side T service driveway to be elevated into a cross street. Ground-level Foundry St. can have easily fungible ramp-up access on the remaining side. Completion of the Harbor Walk on east side of Bass River with ped overpasses of the commuter rail wye + Old Colony/Fairmount mainline tracks hooks it into Rolling Bridge Park/Dot Ave. and Albany St. under full grade separation. The best of the two available blocks for access and building footprints.

The block north of Traveler is larger and even more centrally located, albeit with trickier street grid with only elevated Traveler and ground-level Foundry. If that T service driveway were elevated across the Traveler-W. 4th block, it could however continue as a dead-end along the west side and possibly wrap-around to subdivide buildings...though I don't see how it could be made into a complete block inclining down to touch Dot Ave. without great difficulty.


The Red Line yard tracks are already spaced for air rights pegs, and being all-electric no ventilation stacks would be required...addressing one of the biggest cost-bloating flaws of the Widett decking scheme. If the deck overhanging the commuter rail tracks leaves them wide open to the air from the side and a retaining wall is put between CR and Red Line tracks, diesel trains will be able to passively vent out the open side without any need for costly fan installations. The only yard structures you'd have to move are: the single-bay Red Line work equipment repair garage (abutting Traveler @ Foundry), and a substation building (near W. 4th @ Foundry). The substation can either be rebuilt on-spot spread out a little more horizontally to knock a few feet off the height so it's lower than the bridges and deck, or moved and consolidated amongst a bunch of signal bungalow buildings just south of the W. 4th bridge. The garage can be rebuilt where those signal buildings are if the signal buildings were rebuilt with more height to consolidate acreage. South of W. 4th is verboten for air rights because of the main Red Line maint building, so no future considerations are impacted by stacking the RL electrical & support infrastructure taller there.
 
Indeed, if this could ever get any headway it would be (sick). Like many of you all, i've lost faith in Boston's ability to carry Air Rights projects to the construction phase–after so many failed starts, (3 decades + recent) slow, slower, stalled out, or dead.

failed
Boylston Square ~660' (total planned height)
Copley Tower 625'
Columbus Ctr 420'
Leather District/Chinatown parcels 25, 26, etc...... (2) X 300' + mid-rises.

when??
SST
Back Bay
Fenway Ctr
1000 Boylston
Parcels 12 & 13
Columbus Ctr reprise
Parcels 25, 26 (solved)....
 
The City and MBTA are so busy trying to sell of their property that they are giving no thought to where they will operate in the future. A tow lot, DPW yard and train parking are are not sexy use of land, but they are necessary for the City and MBTA to operate. Just like getting rid of gas stations is a bad idea, getting rid of necessary public spaces will turn out to be a disaster in the future.
 
In fairness this, widett circle, are decking projects like Hudson yards. This part especially is at capacity and the future wont be affected by decking.
 
I agree it could be extremely short sighted for the city and mbta to sell off these properties. Sure it's a huge cash windfall in the short term, but if it costs a good deal more in operating costs it could be a net negative and they wont be able to get the land back once gone.

They say air rights so this one may change little in the long run for mbta.

My other concern is they may be missing the bubble with large scale developments. Flower exchange, bayside expo, eastie dog tracks, Gillette land, and possibly widett circle and the city tow lot will all come before this.

Also air rights dont seem to work in this city.
 
^^i assumed they're keeping the track row/s

for ~285' buildings to rise above.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
I agree it could be extremely short sighted for the city and mbta to sell off these properties. Sure it's a huge cash windfall in the short term, but if it costs a good deal more in operating costs it could be a net negative and they wont be able to get the land back once gone.

They say air rights so this one may change little in the long run for mbta.

My other concern is they may be missing the bubble with large scale developments. Flower exchange, bayside expo, eastie dog tracks, Gillette land, and possibly widett circle and the city tow lot will all come before this.

Also air rights dont seem to work in this city.
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While it's very understandable to think that government may be shortsighted in disposing of these assets, I believe it's efficient to leverage the land value of these under utilized properties to invest in the long term sustainability of the T.
 
Seems like the more shrewd way of dealing with things like this is via ground lease and not outright selling the land for a one time payout.
 
bakgwailo said:
Seems like the more shrewd way of dealing with things like this is via ground lease and not outright selling the land for a one time payout.
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How does that work property tax wise? I mean if the land is still owned by the government it isn't taxed, but would the commercial/office/residential buildings be taxed?
 
tangent said:
How does that work property tax wise? I mean if the land is still owned by the government it isn't taxed, but would the commercial/office/residential buildings be taxed?
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The money is made as lease revenue, rather than as taxes. So the question is what makes more: the present value of all lease payments or the net sale proceeds + present value of all tax receipts. I'm guessing the latter pays more than the former, but I don't have access to the data to do a real analysis.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
I agree it could be extremely short sighted for the city and mbta to sell off these properties. Sure it's a huge cash windfall in the short term, but if it costs a good deal more in operating costs it could be a net negative and they wont be able to get the land back once gone.

They say air rights so this one may change little in the long run for mbta.

My other concern is they may be missing the bubble with large scale developments. Flower exchange, bayside expo, eastie dog tracks, Gillette land, and possibly widett circle and the city tow lot will all come before this.

Also air rights dont seem to work in this city.
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Air rights are very difficult to work around. Hudson Yards in NYC, which seems to be everyone's example of successful air rights, is only for train parking. More complex work such repairing equipment, storing chemicals, etc. cannot be done under large buildings. To put it simply, it is not realistic to build decking and expect everything to remain the same under the decking.
 
HenryAlan said:
The money is made as lease revenue, rather than as taxes. So the question is what makes more: the present value of all lease payments or the net sale proceeds + present value of all tax receipts. I'm guessing the latter pays more than the former, but I don't have access to the data to do a real analysis.
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The tenant under a ground lease pays real estate taxes and other applicable taxes unless otherwise exempt. The tenant's interest under the ground lease has value as do the improvements which are owned by the tenant, subject to the landlord's reversionary interest (i.e., landlord's right to get the property back at the end of the Lease). The fair market value of the tenant's interest is used to determine the real estate taxes.
 
navigator4 said:
Air rights are very difficult to work around. Hudson Yards in NYC, which seems to be everyone's example of successful air rights, is only for train parking. More complex work such repairing equipment, storing chemicals, etc. cannot be done under large buildings. To put it simply, it is not realistic to build decking and expect everything to remain the same under the decking.
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Also, there's how many 1000ft+ buildings on top of it to make it economically feasible? If the Columbus Center didnt work then this is a non starter
 
I think a better question than decking over the facilities is are the making efficient use of all of the land. When I lived in Davis Square there's a barn for the trackless trollies up Mass Ave in Cambridge and it was a large parking lot that got filled in with an apartment complex but leaving enough room for the trollies to get in and out.

So, if the MBTA or the city tow lot doesn't need all of the land that they're currently sitting on this might be a worthwhile endeavor without the never-gonna-happen decking as part of the equation.
 
dirtywater said:
The tenant under a ground lease pays real estate taxes and other applicable taxes unless otherwise exempt. The tenant's interest under the ground lease has value as do the improvements which are owned by the tenant, subject to the landlord's reversionary interest (i.e., landlord's right to get the property back at the end of the Lease). The fair market value of the tenant's interest is used to determine the real estate taxes.
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Thanks, I wasn't clear on the precise mechanics, only wanted to demonstrate that the city gets it's cut regardless. So under a lease, then, it would be a combination of tax revenue and lease payments?
 
HenryAlan said:
Thanks, I wasn't clear on the precise mechanics, only wanted to demonstrate that the city gets it's cut regardless. So under a lease, then, it would be a combination of tax revenue and lease payments?
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Yes, plus, they retain the underlying land value/rights (which are gone forever just selling it for the one time payout). In fact, we should just let HK's MTR run everything.
 
Rover said:
I think a better question than decking over the facilities is are the making efficient use of all of the land. When I lived in Davis Square there's a barn for the trackless trollies up Mass Ave in Cambridge and it was a large parking lot that got filled in with an apartment complex but leaving enough room for the trollies to get in and out.

So, if the MBTA or the city tow lot doesn't need all of the land that they're currently sitting on this might be a worthwhile endeavor without the never-gonna-happen decking as part of the equation.
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Not the case here. This is the primary Red Line storage yard. All of the ground-level real estate is mission-critical usage for train storage, as there is no other yard property available anywhere along the Red Line of similar size. But unlike the block south of W. 4th where the multi-story main Red Line maintenance building is, these two parcels are strictly subway train storage with no need for any other functions (assuming 2 sheds on those parcels are reconsolidated south of W. 4th). So it can be capped with air rights that don't require ventilation of the ground level so long as the west side of the deck is left open to let the 4 commuter rail approach tracks passively vent out the side.

Under no circumstances would they ever ever ever put the real estate itself up for sale. The Red Line can't run without it.
 
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