Quincy General Developments

What's up with the MBTA purchasing this office building? Do they already have offices here? I couldn't find anything online about the MBTA needing this space.

MBTA Buys Quincy Office for $13M

MBTA Buys Quincy Office for $13M
www.bldup.com www.bldup.com
 
My only guess is that I know they originally wanted to include office space above the new bus garage they’re building across from QA. That was cut when the original bids came in above budget. This may be to compensate for that.
 
The T's board meeting described it in one sentence as "consolidating operations out of leased spaces at a more efficient cost." I was skeptical of them needing 150,000 sqft until I looked at their payroll - Assuming that only members of the exec main fund, TEA and L105/L453 folks need desks, thats about 1600 folks, out of 7700 total employees. (since I'm using state payroll data, its not adjusted for hires/separations, but I assume most of those are in the operator ranks). Minus whatever portion are based out of HQ/STB or the maintenance facilities, (I assumed about 600, the TEA and most of the executive main fund, as well as the trans/maint supervisor roles) there still appears to be ~900 employees unaccounted for. At an average of 165sqft/employee, the T could actually occupy the entire building.

Edit: interesting... The site includes the garage. This is an interesting purchase, as it also has future TOD potential. having looked at it on Google maps, a quick question for the quincy residents - is the ground level parking under the garage proper public station parking, with only the upper decks reserved for the building itself?
 

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Stlin said:
The T's board meeting described it in one sentence as "consolidating operations out of leased spaces at a more efficient cost." I was skeptical of them needing 150,000 sqft until I looked at their payroll - Assuming that only members of the exec main fund, TEA and L105/L453 folks need desks, thats about 1600 folks, out of 7700 total employees. (since I'm using state payroll data, its not adjusted for hires/separations, but I assume most of those are in the operator ranks). Minus whatever portion are based out of HQ/STB or the maintenance facilities, (I assumed about 600, the TEA and most of the executive main fund, as well as the trans/maint supervisor roles) there still appears to be ~900 employees unaccounted for. At an average of 165sqft/employee, the T could actually occupy the entire building.

Edit: interesting... The site includes the garage. This is an interesting purchase, as it also has future TOD potential. having looked at it on Google maps, a quick question for the quincy residents - is the ground level parking under the garage proper public station parking, with only the upper decks reserved for the building itself?
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Very nice reporting. Where are those 900 office MBTA employees located now? The Transportation Building in Park Square?
 
Java King said:
Very nice reporting. Where are those 900 office MBTA employees located now? The Transportation Building in Park Square?
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They are leasing office space in various downtown office buildings.
 
Man its so disheartening whenever I’m looking at developments in quincy and come across this old render of what one chestnut place in quincy center was supposed to be.

Attractive tower on a brick podium with lots of retail right up against the street.
ghows_image-WL-9544ab61-e16e-4c80-8ca8-147bc3118911.jpeg


Compared to the tower in a field we got.
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stick n move said:
Man its so disheartening whenever I’m looking at developments in quincy and come across this old render of what one chestnut place in quincy center was supposed to be.

Attractive tower on a brick podium with lots of retail right up against the street.
ghows_image-WL-9544ab61-e16e-4c80-8ca8-147bc3118911.jpeg


Compared to the tower in a field we got.
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This was getting started right around when I moved to Quincy, do you know what happened? Was it public processed to death?

Suffolk 83 said:
Quincy isnt exactly the most forward looking city unfortunately
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To be fair I think Quincy has been right at the top in terms of the amount of housing stock they've gotten built over the past decade and continues to have stuff lined up. There's seemingly so much wasted potential in so many of the projects...but projects are at least getting done. Koch has overseen an imperfect but significant revitalization of Quincy Center.
 
That is a really peculiar development. Even if I step into the shoes of a nimby I can’t think of why I’d prefer it that way. It’s like a suburban hotel setback…
 
That's quite possible.

Just speculating, but I also wonder if financing was a challenge, too. Quincy wasn't yet a "proven" luxury market when it was proposed, and it's possible they couldn't find enough bank money that believed in their vision.
 
Ugh had no idea Avalon took this project over. No wonder the number of units is way down from what was approved. Can't wait to see how much more parking they managed to fit in.
 
I had no idea there was a decent proposal for one chestnut place. All proposals I've ever seen were for suburban type shite.

As usual, there were serious concerns about traffic and there are folks in city hall that have proclaimed their love for those school bus loop type driveways to get all those pickups and drop offs off the street, preventing a traffic apocalypse. Then there's the obligatory desire for more "green space", which means the residents can let their dogs piss and shit there.

My only hope is that maybe one day the building owner will successfully petition the city to allow an expansion of the lower floors.
 
KCasiglio said:
Koch has overseen an imperfect but significant revitalization of Quincy Center.
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The tide was bound to come in at some point being on Boston's doorstep with 4 T stops and direct access to 2 of the region's busiest highways; I'll personally be holding off on giving that crook credit until we see what's what when the feds are headed out of town. Congrats to the nepo baby on his 79% raise though, good swindle on that one.
 
Aprehensive_Words said:
That's quite possible.

Just speculating, but I also wonder if financing was a challenge, too. Quincy wasn't yet a "proven" luxury market when it was proposed, and it's possible they couldn't find enough bank money that believed in their vision.
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I don't know enough about that project specifically, but financing (both LP equity and debt) is often the biggest hurdle to getting design items approved after zoning/city council. So many capital partners don't want anything that is too different from the area or too avant garde, they don't want to risk the building being hard to rent, affecting values, so they'll only fund projects that all look and behave the same.
 
Grossman Presents Plans for Granite Place

At a preliminary hearing June 26 before the planning board, Grossman's Director of Development Avi Shoss presented plans to redevelop Quincy Granite Place, the strip mall anchored by T.J. Maxx and The Dollar Store, which is bordered by Hannon Parkway to the south, Burgin Parkway to the east and Granite Street to the west and north. The 5.2-acre parcel also includes a Burger King in its northeast corner.

[...]

In a brief presentation, Shoss outlined plans to build 256 apartments as well as 65,000 square feet of restaurants, office space and retail space.

[...]

The site would include 350 covered parking spaces within the footprint of the residential building at the southern end of the parcel with an additional 147 surface parking spaces outside, Shoss said. At present, the site holds 214 parking spaces.

The project has two main components, a seven-story residential building and a single-story retail building along the north side of the parcel, Shoss said. The building would include two levels of parking beneath five stories of apartments.

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Existing Conditions at Granite Place

74282278007-grossmans-granite-hannon-intersection.png

Rendering of proposed development from similar angle
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Boy, nobody does disappointing development quite like Quincy. Yet another massive expansion of parking capacity within walking distance of QC. There's more renderings that demonstrate this particular point better but it's basically parking for the first two floors underneath the residences and then the commercial space is off to the side as one story stuff.

As usual...it's better than what's there now, they're in effect putting 256 apartments on a platform above the surface lot, but it just could be so much better.

 
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