Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

stoweker said:
the rate drop has actually made the lending market worse for this stuff, the debt funds have a floor rate that they can borrow at and as rates continue to go down their spreads continue to increase so that they can get to their return targets. it's a crazy challenging lending environment, cost of debt effectively doubled from march 1 to today. the only place debt has gotten cheaper is for the market rate apartment rental guys who are borrowing from Freddie.
Click to expand...

Whats your thoughts on Garage Center project? Are they in trouble also?
50 Sudbury St | GCG Phase I | Gov't Center
 
FWIW my company’s wall st lease ends next year and they’re actively searching for space. 100% signing a long term lease in nyc cbd in the next few months.
 
Johnnyrocket891 said:
Whats your thoughts on Garage Center project? Are they in trouble also?
50 Sudbury St | GCG Phase I | Gov't Center
Click to expand...

this thing is financed, under construction and has an anchor tenant/ target date for delivery. I believe state street took the entire bottom half of the building. The only trouble I see is difficulty signing the more expensive top half. I’d still love to hear stowekers take tho.
 
I’ve been looking forward to this project for a long time. If this ends up in the dustbin this one hurts.
No cool looking tower
No money for the city
What happens to the shadow laws?
 
The only chance they had was public pressure. The problem is there is no community or public that will pressure this project.

Everybody walks on this one and the city will look the other way. Sad but true.

2nd future hole in Boston and this one might last for a while.
 
Can’t help but wonder why they waited so long for outside investor.
 
stoweker said:
it's tough to syndicate that much money. like really, really tough.

i'm more surprised that they moved forward with so much expensive site work without the financing lined up, especially so late in the cycle.
Click to expand...
My read is that they thought they had the financing plan in the bank -- but then COVID-19 hit and it fell apart.
 
617 said:
I’ve been looking forward to this project for a long time. If this ends up in the dustbin this one hurts.
No cool looking tower
No money for the city
What happens to the shadow laws?
Click to expand...

No 350' affordable housing tremont st tower.
 
Johnnyrocket891 said:
Don't be so negative- MP got this,
Maybe the city & state can allow a 15 year tax abatement
Until the numbers work. Maybe some subsidized housing availability for the citizens of Boston?

How can the city go from a housing crisis to a hole in the city in 3 months?
Click to expand...

A: COVID 19
 
Honestly, I’ll take this hole over that godawful garage if that’s what it comes to.
 
George_Apley said:
Honestly, I’ll take this hole over that godawful garage if that’s what it comes to.
Click to expand...

At least the significant foundation work is done and who knows how far below they got before COVID. (i.e. This is less of a literal "hole.") If this does get cancelled/sold/postponed, the next development would likely start right away, pending they choose a similar footprint and structural layout, which you'd be crazy not to do here.
 
The only news so far is theyre removing part of the second tower, so until stated otherwise thats where it stands as of now.
 
They’re more likely to sell the project as is than scale it down and still assume fair amount of risk with a far less ROI. Someone would pick this up in a heartbeat being downtown, passed all possible bureaucratic hurdles, union agreements, not to mention it already going vertical. I agree with stick, we have heard nothing. the changes need to be approved and their current change is probably the most they could adjust without creating significant perception of being in trouble.
 
shmessy said:
A: COVID 19
Click to expand...

More likely factor is the-
B: Over-leveraged debt bubble market created by the Fed.
*Invincible Boston economy could not handle a 3--Month hiccup without collapsing. I would say that's a solid economic foundation in real estate we have in our city.

Whats the Fed into the markets for 6 trillion in stimulus? They can't afford to give MP an extra 200 or 300 Million to allow MP to finish up the tower?
 
Last edited:
View attachment 5824
8AC5965E-4C52-4419-AC29-465ABDDA42BD.jpeg
0AE90A9D-D30C-4C5B-B8C9-3591C3A34EF4.jpeg
 
A couple of thoughts:

1) Isn't capital drying up everywhere? As in its not a Winthrop Square development issue but a countrywide issue unless a project already has a major tenant lined up. So why wouldn't this developer or any other one not just take a pause for 6 or 9 months and then restart after seeing how things are shaking out (Covid vaccine, change in President, etc). Is there any good place to build on spec at this point? I don't quite see this is the same issue as Filenes.

2) I had read previously on this thread the notion that everyone was going to flee the coasts and move elsewhere. I'm curious if that theory still holds given the horrific outbreak of cases in places like Arizona, Texas, Florida, etc. Seems the Northeast might recover first, given the lower #'s now vs the rest of the country, subject to us not getting a second wave of course.
 
Rover said:
1) Isn't capital drying up everywhere? As in its not a Winthrop Square development issue but a countrywide issue unless a project already has a major tenant lined up. So why wouldn't this developer or any other one not just take a pause for 6 or 9 months and then restart after seeing how things are shaking out (Covid vaccine, change in President, etc). Is there any good place to build on spec at this point? I don't quite see this is the same issue as Filenes.
Click to expand...
Yes, exactly. We are in the midst of the single greatest economic shock in the memories of anybody alive today. This is historic uncharted territory on a global scale. There is nothing that anybody could have done to totally insulate themselves from this uncertainty.

And this project isn't dead yet. It makes total sense for Millennium -- or anybody else in their shoes -- to be nervous right now, and to slow down for a bit and evaluate their alternatives.
 
stoweker said:
eh, capital isn't drying up there's a ton of dry powder for equity investment in value add deal and development in garden style multifamily, industrial, and data centers, and you can get that financed too. It's everything else that no one will touch (CBD anything, hotel anything, retail anything, office anything).

general line of thought is that as work from home becomes more prevalent, people might move to lower cost of living states where quality of life is better. companies that need employees in seats might move them all out of the coasts to back offices in lower occupancy cost places as well (DFW, CLT, ATL, etc). both were existing trends, this might accelerate it. who knows.
Click to expand...

Can you define quality of life as being better? I get the cheaper part but again if cheaper was the end all be all we'd all be living in Arkansas right now.

I'll counter with two points: 1) from 2005-2017 90% of high tech jobs were created in 5 cities - Seattle, SF, San Jose, SD and Boston.



2) Also read another interesting article about housing prices in Boston, where the point was that biotech firms committing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop lucrative drug treatments aren't looking to nickel and dime their employees on comp - they need to best people not the people who will work cheapest.

I'm trying to square the trend you write about as it relates to Boston development with the city's population and job growth over the same period of time.
 
Has any progress been made on this in the last couple of weeks? Are there workers back on site?

If not it might be time to temporarily lock this thread until we have actual, concrete information. I'm tired of all the (mostly negative) conjecture.
 
DZH22 said:
Has any progress been made on this in the last couple of weeks? Are there workers back on site?

If not it might be time to temporarily lock this thread until we have actual, concrete information. I'm tired of all the (mostly negative) conjecture.
Click to expand...

Why lock the thread if the project is still in progress? Maybe you should ignore the thread if the negativity is bothering you. Not all projects turn out positive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top