No bias - and lots of informed people weighing in - even when I disagree with them.
Here's a back of the envelope on the value of that land.
As it sits - it might be worth $15 million - a multistory garage in disrepair won't bring much in the scheme of downtown real estate - unless Don Chioffaro wants to buy it (and this is the one he should have bought!)
Note the land for the Hancock is assessed at $150 million - commercial assessments (for reasons too complex to get into) tend to be about half of what a property generally sells for - sometimes up to 60% but rarely over that. That means the land is probably worth about $300 million - and should be comparable to what the land for a 700 foot tower of similar dimensions should bring (I have to look it up - but didn't the Hancock sell for about $1 billion the last time it turned over and that was several years ago?).
Try it another way. Say the land is worth $300 million. It costs $400 a sf to put up 1 million sf - $400 million. That leaves $300 million for selling expenses, overhead etc for whomever develops the property assuming it sells for $1 billion - comparable to the Hancock. Numbers might work even better if it's residential at $1500 per sf. I'm not in the real estate biz - but a 30% gross margin seems to be pretty good these days. I know smaller developers that work on maybe half that.
Big question is what will ultimately get built - that will determine the value of the land, but we are definitely looking north of $150 million in almost any reasonable scenario.
Thank you Kevin and Shirley for your hard work on this!
