The recession is over, let's spend money! Boston Development 2010

Ron Newman said:
Is that show set or filmed in Boston? If not, I doubt anyone here pays much attention to it. (I do remember MTV's The Real World set in Boston many years ago.)
Click to expand...

It was about the Gloucester pregnancy club I think, so that's the connection to Boston, but the larger point is that mass culture de-values independent thinking.

vanshnookenraggen said:
Yeah, I think his name was Karl Marx.
Click to expand...

Obviously the truth lies somewhere in between. It is a symbiotic relationship. However, Rand's viewpoint seems ascendant these days, so it might be good for an entertaining counterpoint.
 
kennedy said:
Improve your brand until it's simply irresistible. That should be the strategy, not this shameless spending into oblivion (like John said, a race to the bottom). Spend tax dollars on improving the city for everyone, not filling a corporations coffers. Instead of bailing out bad loans, the city and state should instead focus on attracting businesses into deals based on the amenities they might receive.

"Hey Liberty Mutual, we really think that you should stay here. We know it's more expensive, and we know that Charlotte is offering you all sorts of financing packages, but we can't do that. Instead, we'll help beef up city services in your area, build that new T stop, and repave the roads, and after some review, we'll see what we can do about tax adjustments."
Click to expand...

So hey, when will this improvement of our brand happen? Although not in Boston, a candy factory is leaving Mansfield to Pennsylvania this fall. Let me know when Massachusetts develops this strategy of yours. Until then, I guess I'll just look enviously at the other states who are more business friendly and are taking businesses away from MA.
 
I have to go with KentXie. What's with all this crap about preferring to be a "leader" and "branding"? What's with the idea that we are somehow above incentives in taxes and favorable policies? (also if anyone John Keith's analogy seriously, it is a flawed analogy that only sidetrack the discussion). What matters is what works.

You know what makes companies stay? Money. Period.

Perhaps NYC or some other city get companies without such incentives, but even then, money is still the core reason. It is more profitable to operate in NYC with the critical mass of expertise offered by the people there and other companies around than savings of tax incentives of Charlotte.

The real challenge is how to make the best carrot with the least money. The current strategy of subsidizing companies is making a pretty poor carrot with a lot of money. Subsidizing will only please one company at great cost that still does not guarantee anything. However, economic development zones is more effective, still cost money to cutting revenue if zone more normally, but work to attract multiple companies instead of one. Legislation like killing non-compete clauses can help (or hurt, depends in context, in this case, in the war between Silicon valley vs Route 128 didn't payed off).

In the end, what we should think about is what works and what doesn't works. Anything that is effective for the greater cause is what we should do. Anything that doesn't work should be thrown away. If tax incentives works even though we may look down on Houston, then we should do it. If subsidization works then we should it (I think it fails for Liberty, but there are cases that does work). Doing things that works, whatever we are copying from some other city or our own original ideas is what makes us a leader. All cards in our hand must be playable.
 
Blackstone Group Facing Default On Debt Tied To Equity Office Buyout
By Paul McMorrow

Banker & Tradesman Staff Writer
05/24/10

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Approximately $4.9 billion in commercial debt tied to the Blackstone Group's market-topping 2007 buyout of Equity Office Properties - which include 12 Boston properties -- has been transferred to special servicing, Fitch Ratings said today.

Blackstone is trying to restructure mortgages tied to its $39 billion EOP takeover in 2007. Bloomberg previously reported that Blackstone may be willing to extend the mortgages' maturities in exchange for paying off a portion of the outstanding principal on the interest-only loans. Bank of America will act as the loan's special servicer.

According to the debt-tracking firm Trepp, the $4.9 billion acquisition loan, which was securitized through Goldman Sachs, is performing. However, Blackstone is staring down a 2012 mortgage maturity.

Boston represents the single-largest office market in the $4.9 billion pool of properties, according to Trepp.

The special servicing transfer includes most of EOP's local properties, including: 1-3 Center Plaza, 100 Summer St., 125 Summer St., the offices at South Station, 150 Federal St., 175 Federal St., 1 Post Office Square, 225 Federal St., 28 State St., 60 State St., 500 Boylston St., and 222 Berkeley St., all in Boston; 245 First St., 1 Memorial Drive, 10 Canal Park, and 1 Canal Plaza in Cambridge; 77 South Bedford St., 25 Mall Road and the New England Executive Park in Burlington; 275 Grove St. in Newton; and the Wellesley Office Park in Wellesley.

Commercial property values have fallen far from their 2007 heights, Wall Street mortgage securitizations have all but ceased, and banks and insurance companies have tightened loan-to-value requirements, meaning that refinancing of any boom-era loan would likely require a significant injection of new capital.

Blackstone, which has traditionally made money buying and flipping firms, is believed to be eyeing ways to exit the EOP portfolio, either by taking the office unit public, by selling the portfolio wholesale, or by spinning off office buildings piecemeal. Blackstone flipped many pieces of the EOP portfolio immediately after acquiring them, but the firm needs to wait for the capital markets to recover, and for values to bounce back, to unload the rest.

Blackstone could not be immediately reached for comment.
 
Looks like plenty of properties will be up for sale in the future. Blackstone looking to dump some of it's debt.
 
My bet is Tishman Speyer defaults on One Federal in the future.



BofA to leave One Federal Street
Boston Business Journal - by Craig M. Douglas
Send this story to a friend

Bank of America Corp. confirmed this week it has vacated its 224,000-square-foot space at One Federal St. in Boston well ahead of its Sept. 30 lease expiration.

A bank official said all operations previously housed at One Federal, aside from some legacy offices inherited through its 2009 acquisition of Merrill Lynch, have been moved to its expanded footprint at 22 Franklin St. in Boston. Bank of America has no plans to renew any portion of the expiring lease, which applies to roughly 20 percent of One Federal?s 1.12 million square feet of leasable space.

BofA?s disclosure comes roughly eight months ahead of another major lease-expiration at One Federal ? State Street Corp.?s deal for 100,000 square feet of space expires at the end of February. The Boston-based financial services firm declined to comment on its real estate plans.

Nonetheless, State Street has openly detailed its plans to transition more of its workforce overseas in the year ahead. Should the company vacate One Federal, the combination of its departure and uncertainty surrounding Bank of America?s existing space would put roughly 30 percent of the building?s leasable space in question.

Calls to the property?s owner, New York-based Tishman Speyer, were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Tishman acquired the 38-story tower from Atlanta-based real estate investor Jamestown in 2006 for $534 million. The deal was primarily financed with a $262 million interest-only loan that balloons to maturity in 2016.



Read more: BofA to leave One Federal Street - Boston Business Journal
 
Last edited:
I'm trying to figure out what 22 Franklin is. Anyone know?

Google Maps gives me a view of the Target/Marshall's which has nothing but a parking garage over it...
 
Clicking through brings you the whole article plus a list of projects expected to get started in 2011.

Developers poised to pull triggers
Boston Business Journal - by Craig M. Douglas

The deep freeze that?s kept developers and investors on the sidelines for the better part of two years appears to be thawing, as a roster of massive residential projects is expected to break ground in Greater Boston over the next two quarters.

In most cases, the projects have been on the books ? from a zoning and public-planning standpoint ? for several years but were mothballed once the housing downturn and financial crisis of 2008 took hold. Many of them have since undergone changes in scale and mission, with the most common theme being a conversion from the once-lucrative prospect of offering high-end condominiums to more moderate plans featuring rental units for young workers on the go.

Nearly all of the projects are driven by the region?s insatiable appetite for convenient and competitively priced rental housing.

The news is creating buzz among the region?s many service providers ? construction executives, public planning officials, real estate lawyers ? that often are the first called to action in the frenzied weeks leading up to a project?s formal groundbreaking. In turn, the uptick in business, albeit modest to date, is being widely interpreted as a sign that the market has bottomed out and is staged for a solid recovery.

?Clients are asking us to dust off the number, update the numbers. It?s promising,? said Mark DiNapoli, Suffolk Construction?s president of the New England region.

In Boston alone, a handful of projects promises to flood the market with more than 2,000 rental units as well as a smattering of smaller, ground-level retail spaces. Nearly all of those developments are fully permitted and designed; most are expected to formally break ground within the next six months, according to sources ...
Click to expand...

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/r...-poised-to-pull-triggers.html?ana=e_bost_real
 
WTF. So pissed about Transnational and South Station Tower. Just these two babies alone would have given Boston a skyline of strong admiration it really needs, the perverbial "cherry on top". Even Mobile, AL is getting a new tallest.

Has Menino transferred his aspirations towards the low-rise infill to the east waterfront now? Has he totally given up on TNP or any possibility of something else to take it's place.

What can I say, Boston could have put all other competing cities, like Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, all to shame if you also consider Boston's other superior attributes.

What a shame...
 
Cry me a river. I'll take 10 million sqft of low rise infill over those towers any day.
 
Reactions to the article:

If that East Boston Pier 1 development ever breaks ground, I'll eat my hat. And a monkey's uncle.

Also, timely bump of that Parcel 24 Chinatown thread!
 
And that's what the Seaport will become. Blocks and blocks of low rise infills.
Click to expand...
That would be awesome. Too bad they are using the one building per block model and the buildings are 10-15 stories, which isn't really low rise.... aaand most of the streets are as wide as the Champs Elysees and every other block is a park. I wish it was blocks and blocks of low rise infill.
 
Blocks and blocks of low rise infills.
Click to expand...

Not exactly a problem in theory...

paris_from_high_240951.JPG
 
But you know it's never going to be like that.
 
In a nimbys mind, this type of development (picture two posts above) would have disaterous outcomes. Children getting kidnaped in shadows, all life forms dying in the tight narrow streets, drugs rampant in all those units, and people suffocating w/o superflous open space. And yet in reality it makes a great neighborhood that gets visted by millions of people, including American suburbanites each year. And the impression left is that this is grand and beautiful. Now granted ecomics factors into it as well. Its just the point I'm getting at is to suggest density like that these days in the states will get you such opposition with silly claims about how much quality of life would suffer and yet clearly it can be amazingly great.
 
But you know it's never going to be like that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. But the argument above seems to be "the neighborhood is going to be shit either way, and I'd rather have highrise shit than midrise shit".

I'd rather focus on ending the conditions that make it a presumption that the neighborhood will be shit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top