Raffles Boston (40 Trinity Place) | 426 Stuart Street | Back Bay

393b40 said:
Building luxury condos on top of a luxury brand mall makes too much sense IMO to not happen eventually, but I think well be waiting at least a decade for the demand to build up again for that kind of high-end high-rise luxury.
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Great points earlier, but I respectfully disagree here.

The age 65+ Active retiree with disposable income demographic Tsunami Wave is already upon us. The pandemic is a burp in time. The demand for high end empty nest urban residential is here now (as opposed to the direction of office space) and will be increasing for decades.

They need to act NOW if they want this to hit the market by 2025.
 
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shmessy said:
Great points earlier, but I respectfully disagree here.

The age 65+ Active retiree with disposable income demographic Tsunami Wave is already upon us. The pandemic is a burp in time. The demand for high end empty nest urban residential is here now (as opposed to the direction of office space) and will be increasing for decades.

They need to act NOW if they want this to hit the market by 2025.
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Great point Shmessy, though the issue is not just for high end empty nesters. I am now 69. I got married in 2014 and after both of us sold small homes in Malden, we moved to Tampa where we bought a house 3 times the size (2300 sqf, 4/2, pool, in an established neighborhood built in '84) of either Malden home, for the same price we got for just one of those homes. Our new home has appreciated 28% since then. While Tampa is otherwise just as expensive as living up north (without state tax, though) the key for us to move away was not just the weather but the affordability of housing. We would have been tempted to stay in the Boston area if we could have bought a home that we could afford within 50+ miles of the city. Boston's neighborhoods have got to be careful not to end up like San Francisco, where I'm told it's impossible to find an affordable home bigger than a studio apartment.
 
Life Coach Mike said:
Great point Shmessy, though the issue is not just for high end empty nesters. I am now 69. I got married in 2014 and after both of us sold small homes in Malden, we moved to Tampa where we bought a house 3 times the size (2300 sqf, 4/2, pool, in an established neighborhood built in '84) of either Malden home, for the same price we got for just one of those homes. Our new home has appreciated 28% since then. While Tampa is otherwise just as expensive as living up north (without state tax, though) the key for us to move away was not just the weather but the affordability of housing. We would have been tempted to stay in the Boston area if we could have bought a home that we could afford within 50+ miles of the city. Boston's neighborhoods have got to be careful not to end up like San Francisco, where I'm told it's impossible to find an affordable home bigger than a studio apartment.
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Hence, increasing the supply to meet the outsized demand! Pure economics. People want to live in Boston and SF so much that the price points are that high. Building more residential high rises will either
a) quench that demand with more population and more affordable housing
Or
b) provide some really outsized tax revenue from the incredibly high prices.

Either way, Boston would win by focusing on residential instead of traditional office buildings going forward. The ancillary effect (more restaurants/markets/stores/doctors offices, etc.) would also flow into making the city a more 24/7 area vs. the 9-5 M-F office building model.
 
From the weekend
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I was wondering why SOM had what seemed to be such a low-profile building here. It's clear they needed a designer that could incorporate such crazy structural needs within a well-finished building/design, and not many firms come to mind other than SOM. Are there any examples of a building transitioning from steel to concrete?
 
stefal said:
Are there any examples of a building transitioning from steel to concrete?
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I'm not sure if it's to this extent, but Hub on Causeway residential was steel podium with a concrete tower, and Winthrop Square has that steel "connector" or whatever they're calling it now, supporting concrete floors on top of it.
 
stefal said:
I was wondering why SOM had what seemed to be such a low-profile building here. It's clear they needed a designer that could incorporate such crazy structural needs within a well-finished building/design, and not many firms come to mind other than SOM. Are there any examples of a building transitioning from steel to concrete?
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I agree this is a challenging design. However the Hub on Causeway residential tower did a similar steel-concrete transition (with two concrete sheer walls that extended the full height):
http://archboston.com/community/thr...-80-causeway-street-west-end.4439/post-324162
 
A while back, one of the construction managers on site mentioned that the glass panel samples for the Raffles building were located on Black Falcon Ave. Although there was no signage, I didn't see any other samples on Black Falcon Ave. so I assumed that these were them.
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shmessy said:
Jeezus, that street pavement............

Hopefully, that's a project after all the construction is complete on those blocks.
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That's the condition of most of the roads in this city. Many are worse.
Biking around last weekend and man did it feel like our infrastructure maintenance is 3rd rate. I'm getting pretty tired of reporting 311 potholes and being told they can't do anything or getting no response at all.
 
5/12 from Arlington. Not only can you see the crane to the right of the Hancock, but I'm pretty sure that's the core for this building underneath the crane, sticking up from behind the Novartis building. We'll be welcoming this one to the skyline view from all over the place in these next few weeks.

IMG_9083 by David Z, on Flickr
 
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