The Kensington | 665 Washington Street | Downtown

Re: Residences at Kensington

On a related/unrelated note...there was a posting on Universal Hub yesterday linking to a story in the Boston Business Journal discussing the recent spate of luxury apartment construction downtown. Among those wondering if the city was building too much, too quickly was one of the big shots from Avalon Bay.

http://www.universalhub.com/2013/people-building-luxury-apartments-boston-fret-they

It's interesting to see some of the pessimism amongst the commentators below.

I chimed in later in the post, basically outlining my understanding of the rental vacancy downtown being extremely low. I would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this and whether or not we might start to see a construction slow down once these projects under construction come online.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Saw this as well. We could use an overbuild to stop prices. But more than that, hopefully if shows developers that there is a large underserved market for more moderately priced apts. A person making $100+k a year (of which I am not one) should be able to find a respectable place downtown that can still satisfy a developers bottom line. Everything now is marketed to super-wealthy people, not even upper middle class.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Someone on here said it before much more eloquently than i can, but s/he basically said that as new luxury buildings come online, older buildings become more affordable. However, when nothing new comes online, developers renovate those older buildings keeping them unaffordable.

I don't know if it rings true, but it does make some sense to me.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

^no the idea of people that can afford it moving up the luxury chain and leaving behind a more affordable place in the market makes sense and is true. I'm not disputing that. But i'm just wondering how much luxury units can the market truly absorb. Otherwise, we have an overbuild of luxury and still have a major affordability problem, even for people pulling in a health income.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

palindrome said:
Someone on here said it before much more eloquently than i can, but s/he basically said that as new luxury buildings come online, older buildings become more affordable. However, when nothing new comes online, developers renovate those older buildings keeping them unaffordable.
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That argument's actually a pretty big chunk of Life and Death of Great American Cities.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Hutchison said:
As an aside, whats with the steel beams sticking out from the building towards Washington st.?
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Based on renderings, I believe those are the supports for a vertical, transluscent sign at the corner of Washington and LaGrange
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Hah, ok, almost unnoticeable in the rendering to me
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

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Re: Residences at Kensington

I kind of wish that the entire building was green glass. Or even a jade color to fit in Chinatown.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

yesterday
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Re: Residences at Kensington

When i saw that firs tpicture, i thought it was an old constrictruction shout of One Marina Park Drive.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Err...maybe I was drunk (and by maybe I mean definitely), but found5dollar didn't you write a post late last night saying this thing was inspired by art deco? I came back here just now all prepared to refute that and write something clever like "I know art deco, and this, sir, is no art deco!"
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

kz1000ps said:
Err...maybe I was drunk (and by maybe I mean definitely), but found5dollar didn't you write a post late last night saying this thing was inspired by art deco? I came back here just now all prepared to refute that and write something clever like "I know art deco, and this, sir, is no art deco!"
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I thought I saw the same post. Then thought it was about another building and was trying to find it. I recall there was a comparison between this building and Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

I agree with the art deco comparison. The facade definitely is inspired by it. It's just not a successful translation.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

I replied to the post but made an ass out of myself saying something completely false about the empire state building and quickly deleted it. It was defiantly here though, and I could kind of see what he was talking about. Its all about vertical thrust.

I think the crown on the Northpoint Archstone is way more deco though, I drive my girlfriend crazy saying something about it every time we take 93 in at night.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

datadyne007 said:
I agree with the art deco comparison. The facade definitely is inspired by it...
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I'd love to see you try to support this. Respectfully, I think you're nuts.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

The window bay layout (shall I go into archispeak and say "fenestration pattern") gives that feel. We are not saying that this is an art deco building, but we're looking beyond the horrible failure of a facade and analyzing what the initial idea was. It lacks the symmetry, motif, repetition and other core organizational principles of art deco and that is why it fails, but it makes an attempt.
 
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