Serenity | 105A S. Huntington | Jamaica Plain

bldbldbld said:
This one really flew up. Looking forward to the leasing office opening next month. Anyone else excited about this project?

Hope the retail they put in brings some life to that neighborhood too.

With the project at the end of S Huntington and the Samuel's one about to go, this corridor is getting a ton of action. Definitely needs shops and restaurants though. Hopefully Children's in Brookline Village puts in some ground floor retail.
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This isnt a good place for retail or restaurant. They should keep that focus down at Huntington. I dont have high hopes for whatever bland chain garbage Childrens will put in the Village, but hope springs eternal for the Huntington@S Huntington development and the hotel at the old Gulf station.
 
FK4 - agreed for restaurant, but we definitely need a small coffee shop in that area or a mini mart. Not really anything close to grab milk etc. There's a minimart at Huntington S Huntington, but it feels distant/isn't the nicest.

From the BRA presentations, I think this has two small retail. Probably coffee shop and something else building amenity wise. Interested to see what goes in.

Agreed for Children's. It was great when the Bertucci's, Soup Kitchen and Skip Jacks were in there.
 
^and the video store. Fond memories of that complex from high school.

I gotta say, a coffee shop would fail there. I'm all for more retail but I've watched two coffee shops - amazingly - start and fail in Hyde Sq since 2007, and that's a much denser area with significantly higher foot traffic.
 
Yes!

Ya I can see that for coffee, but there are a fair amount of employees around with the VA, American Cancer and Sherrill. I'm not sure what any of those people do for coffee currently, other then the work room crap.
 
bldbldbld said:
Yes!

Ya I can see that for coffee, but there are a fair amount of employees around with the VA, American Cancer and Sherrill. I'm not sure what any of those people do for coffee currently, other then the work room crap.
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There's a canteen at the VA.
 
Drove by yesterday and leasing signs were outside of the leasing office.
 
Anyone stop by the leasing office yet? I just saw the leasing banners. Was thinking of maybe stopping by today.
 
I looked up this place on Zillow and they are trying to bang people out for $3K-$3600 for 1 bed room apartments!

I am not dumping on Boston, but that is steep rent for not only Boston but also South Huntington. The Serenity website touts a sort of "on Olmstead Park" location. $3600 gets you a 1 br in a nice, quasi-luxury fully managed high rise in Manhattan. Bonkers.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
I looked up this place on Zillow and they are trying to bang people out for $3K-$3600 for 1 bed room apartments!

I am not dumping on Boston, but that is steep rent for not only Boston but also South Huntington. The Serenity website touts a sort of "on Olmstead Park" location. $3600 gets you a 1 br in a nice, quasi-luxury fully managed high rise in Manhattan. Bonkers.
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I agree it's expensive; however... Between a pool of medical professionals and higher education professionals within a 1-mile radius of Serenity, there's undoubtedly demand for this kind of housing there (probably has been for decades).

According to glassdoor.com, many medical professionals in Boston make anywhere from $70,000 to $250,000/year on average. I'm not saying all of them do, just that those are the averages. It's quite possible there are more than a couple DINKs (double income no kids) working at Brigham & Women's or Beth Israel earning a combined income of $150,000/year that would love to live in a 1-bedroom in this area.
 
There are more than a couple people making that on average a primary care physician earns around $180,000 dollars a year and even other staff like nurses, clinical social workers, and other similar jobs earn around $60-80,000 per year. Based on that there are literally thousands of people working in the Longwood area that can easily afford those apartments.
 
The neighboring new construction apartment building (blanking on name) was offering two months free for a 1 year lease as of last summer.

I have some acquaintances that live there. Prices for 1 bedrooms are similar but with two months free (and no broker fee), the prices are more reasonable.
 
citylover94 said:
There are more than a couple people making that on average a primary care physician earns around $180,000 dollars a year and even other staff like nurses, clinical social workers, and other similar jobs earn around $60-80,000 per year. Based on that there are literally thousands of people working in the Longwood area that can easily afford those apartments.
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Most medical school graduates are leaving school with around a quarter million or more in debt (and much more, if someone didn't pay for college). Then, going into residency for another 3 to 5 years (more, if fellowship) making 60k... I would say 180k is also pretty high for primary care. Not saying there are plenty of medical professionals making good money in the area, but real income for this group is declining fast. Clinical social workers, depending on what field they work in, are paid abysmally and usually far less than 70k. Again, student debt is significant for this group, and many others in the medical/social field.

Edit - when looking at average (mean) physician salaries, the numbers are skewed by the remaining workers still in private practice, which makes far more but is rapidly disappearing. Most docs around here - and obviously the ones in longwood - work in academic medical centers, which pay significantly less.
 
I got that from Forbes who got it from a Merritt Hawkins and Associates study and based on other stats I've seen I think in Boston you can figure that starting you will probably be making between 125 K and 150K and that is the average for all primary care that I found not new grads. I am also aware that medical school costs are high and that academic medical centers pay slightly less, but I can also tell you that a good number of the people working in Longwood can afford those rents and many people working in Longwood are obviously not new grads and would be making significantly more especially any of the doctors that cover specialty areas which would be a significant number of people.

I am well aware that in many places clinical social workers are not paid 70k; however, as someone who has looked at doing clinical social work in the Boston area I can tell you that the starting salary for clinical social workers working in hospitals is usually 50-60K with the median overall salary being around 70K and since we were talking about people working in the institutions in Longwood I figured that assuming they are working for a hospital was a safe guess.
 
Been meaning to post. I was able to stop in a week or so ago, but didn't tour. The office/model unit finishes looked very nice. If anyone tours, update the group on what you see.
 
Took a tour last week. Building has a lot of work left, they showed us a bunch of apartments that were mostly 80-90% complete. Amazed that 1br apts at about 680sq feet are going for 3100. JP rents are now equal to New York City prices for roughly the same square footage and minimal retail. Was surprised to hear there is no affordable income housing in this building. I live in a luxury building near by and the affordable income tenants tend to bring down the luxury factor of building by a significant amount (blasting music, inability to follow basic apt rules, letting their dogs pee all over the place to name a few), that may be a pull for people looking to move into serenity. They said the retail will be a coffee shop and a possibly a wine/cheese store (not sure how that will appeal to the VA workers)
 
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