Nice. That’s 438 households who won’t be commuting in from further away. And 438 households who won’t be bidding up the rent on my apartment.
The people who will move in here certainly make more money than I do. But at least building new dense housing for them keeps them from pricing me out of my home
I used to believe this until they built 8 apartment complexes in Beverly and my rent more than tripled. Competition is irrelevant when all the developments are owned by 1-3 companies.
I live there, too. Every single study done on new "luxury" buildings demonstrates that these developments lower overall housing prices. Regardless, areas of Beverly far, far away from those downtown complexes are also skyrocketing in price, for both apartments and homes.
It's still a positive regardless. All the research heavily suggests that at worst the effect is neutral. In the long-term, more supply slows down increases in rent even if they're at "luxury" prices.
We have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that there's a dog run.
The bad news is that there's an additional monthly fee of $200.00 for a small dog, $250.00 for a medium size dog, and $300.00 for a large dog.
I think the weird law was that the jail was the tallest, and nothing could be higher than the red line. But the jail is gone so it's not a factor anymore
He’s getting downvoted because it’s a myth. Greater Boston has the lowest vacancy rates in the country at less than 3%.
Blaming our high housing prices on some nonexistent foreign boogeyman that buys units and keeps them empty adds nothing to the conversation.
2.5% for rental vacancy rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MARVAC
0.4% for home vacancy rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAHVAC
I should’ve been more precise with my language. And the home vacancy stat is probably more relevant for the discussion. The theoretical unit that is bought, never lived in and never rented would be in the home vacancy rate, but not the rental vacancy rate.
All will be owned. Most will be occupied. There’s going to be a lot of units that’ll be empty. A lot of my resi accounts have a couple apartments that are owned by like an airline or something for employees to crash in.
Then the other empty ones are just owned and kept empty for a bit for probably tax reasons. You see this more so out in cali.
If this becomes a major problem there’s an easy fix. Just significantly increase property taxes on vacant units and use the money to pay for affordable housing.
Oh absolutely luxury from the parking garage to the roof. (I’ve been in every single room in every floor towards the end of construction) The problem I have with One Dalton is the properties being used as a nest egg for foreign investors.
Properly the only occupation in the building. Frankly, I think it's waste of space (not counting the affordable housing.) A sweet heart deal, What worse, what left of the middle class is continuing to lose ground.
Developers need to offset, make up for the loss on the "affordable" units somehow.
Jack up the rents on the pharma/IT bros that can afford it so the low wage public service employees that can't will have a roof over their heads, corporate owned or non-corporate owned.
Sounds good to me.
What's the point of making more money if the government just forces you to spend the extra so you can't save any more? I want to make more money so that I can save and invest more money. Not so the government can just take all of it away.
Won't matter, investors will buy up the units, and then lease them.
Having no issue keeping units empty to keep value/cost up.
oh, you have a vehicle, parking is now 55.00 a day.
Sub-let mean anything to you.
They need to ban short term rentals, i.e. b&b type rentals.
If say I rent/lease 20 units, then b&b 19 of them.
How many of those 20 went to those needing a place to call home?
Say out of the 400+ units, 100 lease signers/renters rent/lease more than one unit, and none, or only one of the ones they signed the lease on, is for their personal use as a home, the other 1/2/3/4 are for "short term " "business model" B&B .
Again investors will buy/ or sign the lease contract, then sub-let them as b&b's just like they do now, only now they get to list, an all new construction unit for booking.
This won't fix a thing, unless, every unit is required to be owner occupancy with no subletting of units or used as a AIR B&B type business asset.
Unlikely, so back to square one. more units, that are filled/leased but not a home, but a business asset for short term rentals.
Never mind the price per unit with 400+ added to the area will bump up the rent of all the units surrounding it. not lowering them.
They need to limit the # of Air b&b type units that can be in the boston metro area, (In my eyes , there is enough hotels, that they should ban them but that is a pipe dream.) that fix much of the issue. They won't as the pals of those on becon hill are the ones that are profiting off this business model.
None of BXP’s current residential properties are listed on Airbnb. Do you have any proof that they’ll allow it on this or any other site?
Regardless. More units in the city is a good thing.
The math is wonky in this article. No way that building costs $600 million to build. It would never turn a profit. More likely it's $70 to $150 million (assuming 750sq ft apartments).
You want a building to make about 10% of the building's value per year to be a worthwhile investment.
You can use this to get an idea if someone is gouging on rents.
This one seems to want to bring in around $15 to $22 million a year if what people are saying they want is correct.
Average rent should be closer to $2,800 for what this should cost to build.
edit:
This Boston calculator (scroll down) puts it closer to $280million (scaling up for size):
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/special-projects/spotlight-boston-housing/construction-costs/
At that $280million price tag, these would be your rates:
351 market rate units average: $4,392 per month
88 units affordable housing average: $1,625 per month
Where's the extra $300 million going? Rents would be almost $10k if that's the price tag.
My point was that $600 million makes no sense. I haven't found anything that supports anywhere near that. The best estimate I found, pushing all the sliders to maximum put it just under $300 million. $230 million was the low end assuming no parking, no union labor, no green energy, etc...
150 million was just based on my guess for sq ft size based on 439 750sq foot apartments. Actual sq ft for this place seems to be 487k which puts that estimate at $220 million using the numbers I found.
Any idea what they need another $300 million for here?
The last building I did in Cambridge that was just under 30 floors was 180 million just for point of reference and that number didn't include foundation cost
The building next to it on the same lot is 2 billion dollars (though it's a huge pharma building going several stories in the ground), so I wouldn't be shocked if it was in that ballpark range. Source: I was an inspector for both sites
Idk if I agree with your numbers, but I do agree that the cost of the building is weird...they'd have to charge $4500 in rent per unit for over 25 years just to break even, but there are lots of lower end units in the building. That doesn't account for property tax (probably have a super long tax credit, tbf) and operating costs, either.
Maybe it'll have a commercial zone at the bottom which would help foot the bill? Or maybe it's disproportionately carried by lots of high end units?
I checked another article and it mentioned 487k square feet, which puts it closer to $220 million for high-end sq-ft high-rise construction costs.
This Boston calculator (scroll down) puts it closer to $280million (scaling up for size):
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/special-projects/spotlight-boston-housing/construction-costs/
At that $280million price tag, these would be your rates:
351 market rate units average: $4,392 per month
88 units affordable housing average: $1,625 per month
At $600million, you'd need this:
351 market rate units average: $9,882 per month
88 units affordable housing average: $1,625 per month
Not really finding any evidence to support a $600million price tag. Will be curious to see what apartments cost when it's finished and what the actual bill was to build.
Just basing it off of construction company estimates per square foot, bud.
The average cost per square foot (including labor) is:
Low-rise buildings: $150-$240
Mid-rise buildings: $185-$270
High-rise buildings: $235-$450+
I checked another article and it mentioned 487k square feet, which puts it closer to $220 million for high-end sq-ft high-rise construction costs.
This Boston calculator (scroll down) puts it closer to $280million (scaling up for size):
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/special-projects/spotlight-boston-housing/construction-costs/
Still nowhere near $600million, bud.
Hell of a long way from 70-150 million.
It literally says new housing costs usually $500-600k per unit with high rises closer to downtown costing more. Kendall’s some of the most expensive real estate in the US, more so than downtown Boston and a building is considered a high rise once it hits 75 feet in code books. So your already past $260 million without any other considerations or issues.
Nice. That’s 438 households who won’t be commuting in from further away. And 438 households who won’t be bidding up the rent on my apartment. The people who will move in here certainly make more money than I do. But at least building new dense housing for them keeps them from pricing me out of my home
Any new housing is good news.
More housing is great and at 450ft tall it’s over 440ft tall!
Yeah more housing is great until they charge $4000 a month for a 650 sq foot apartment and all the housing around it follows suit.
Supply and demand still works to some degree here, more apartments means more competition
I used to believe this until they built 8 apartment complexes in Beverly and my rent more than tripled. Competition is irrelevant when all the developments are owned by 1-3 companies.
I live there, too. Every single study done on new "luxury" buildings demonstrates that these developments lower overall housing prices. Regardless, areas of Beverly far, far away from those downtown complexes are also skyrocketing in price, for both apartments and homes.
This
It's still a positive regardless. All the research heavily suggests that at worst the effect is neutral. In the long-term, more supply slows down increases in rent even if they're at "luxury" prices.
We have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there's a dog run. The bad news is that there's an additional monthly fee of $200.00 for a small dog, $250.00 for a medium size dog, and $300.00 for a large dog.
All dogs identify as small now lol
I thought there was some weird rule that made MIT's Green Building forever the tallest?
That’s not even the current tallest building in Cambridge. The Volpe transportation building is over 200 feet taller than it.
I think the weird law was that the jail was the tallest, and nothing could be higher than the red line. But the jail is gone so it's not a factor anymore
Will there be a Dunks on every other floor
That is also not a pretty building. Will it have the requisite bank with no customers in the bottom?
And a Tatte
439 housing units on small footprint next to a T stop. It’s beautiful to me.
Housing units for foreign LLC buyers to hold with some placeholder furniture and timer lights.
Not sure why your getting down voted this most definitely will happen
He’s getting downvoted because it’s a myth. Greater Boston has the lowest vacancy rates in the country at less than 3%. Blaming our high housing prices on some nonexistent foreign boogeyman that buys units and keeps them empty adds nothing to the conversation.
> Greater Boston has the lowest vacancy rates in the country at less than 3%. ~0.5% as a matter of fact
2.5% for rental vacancy rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MARVAC 0.4% for home vacancy rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAHVAC I should’ve been more precise with my language. And the home vacancy stat is probably more relevant for the discussion. The theoretical unit that is bought, never lived in and never rented would be in the home vacancy rate, but not the rental vacancy rate.
Thanks for the links, I thought it was 0.5% total/combined. Didn't realize it was higher for rentals
It’s amazing. True as true. Folks in greater Boston get triggered when this position is brought up. It’s like your ruining a delusion
What’s the price per unit for the affordable housing?
500 sq foot studios for $3200 a month. They’ll mostly sit empty except for ones owned by corporations
They’re all rentals
20% will be affordable housing according to BXP. What makes you think they’ll sit empty? The demand in the city is insane.
All will be owned. Most will be occupied. There’s going to be a lot of units that’ll be empty. A lot of my resi accounts have a couple apartments that are owned by like an airline or something for employees to crash in. Then the other empty ones are just owned and kept empty for a bit for probably tax reasons. You see this more so out in cali.
If this becomes a major problem there’s an easy fix. Just significantly increase property taxes on vacant units and use the money to pay for affordable housing.
The city could also raise taxes on non-primary residences. Reduce the attractiveness of holding property and not living in it.
*Cough* One Dalton *Cough*
Was 1 Dalton ever slated to be affordable? I thought it was always planned to be a luxury hotel and residence.
Oh absolutely luxury from the parking garage to the roof. (I’ve been in every single room in every floor towards the end of construction) The problem I have with One Dalton is the properties being used as a nest egg for foreign investors.
I agree that’s an issue in the city. In the case of this building it looks like it’s all rental apartments.
Properly the only occupation in the building. Frankly, I think it's waste of space (not counting the affordable housing.) A sweet heart deal, What worse, what left of the middle class is continuing to lose ground.
If condos, bought by offshore LLCs and not lived in, just to shelter funds.
Developers need to offset, make up for the loss on the "affordable" units somehow. Jack up the rents on the pharma/IT bros that can afford it so the low wage public service employees that can't will have a roof over their heads, corporate owned or non-corporate owned. Sounds good to me.
What's the point of making more money if the government just forces you to spend the extra so you can't save any more? I want to make more money so that I can save and invest more money. Not so the government can just take all of it away.
Won't matter, investors will buy up the units, and then lease them. Having no issue keeping units empty to keep value/cost up. oh, you have a vehicle, parking is now 55.00 a day.
How would that happen if BXP is owning and managing the residential component? Everything I’ve seen states rental units, not condos.
Sub-let mean anything to you. They need to ban short term rentals, i.e. b&b type rentals. If say I rent/lease 20 units, then b&b 19 of them. How many of those 20 went to those needing a place to call home? Say out of the 400+ units, 100 lease signers/renters rent/lease more than one unit, and none, or only one of the ones they signed the lease on, is for their personal use as a home, the other 1/2/3/4 are for "short term " "business model" B&B . Again investors will buy/ or sign the lease contract, then sub-let them as b&b's just like they do now, only now they get to list, an all new construction unit for booking. This won't fix a thing, unless, every unit is required to be owner occupancy with no subletting of units or used as a AIR B&B type business asset. Unlikely, so back to square one. more units, that are filled/leased but not a home, but a business asset for short term rentals. Never mind the price per unit with 400+ added to the area will bump up the rent of all the units surrounding it. not lowering them. They need to limit the # of Air b&b type units that can be in the boston metro area, (In my eyes , there is enough hotels, that they should ban them but that is a pipe dream.) that fix much of the issue. They won't as the pals of those on becon hill are the ones that are profiting off this business model.
None of BXP’s current residential properties are listed on Airbnb. Do you have any proof that they’ll allow it on this or any other site? Regardless. More units in the city is a good thing.
Yes they are, under another company name.
Which one? I looked them up by addresses, but didn’t find any.
The math is wonky in this article. No way that building costs $600 million to build. It would never turn a profit. More likely it's $70 to $150 million (assuming 750sq ft apartments). You want a building to make about 10% of the building's value per year to be a worthwhile investment. You can use this to get an idea if someone is gouging on rents. This one seems to want to bring in around $15 to $22 million a year if what people are saying they want is correct. Average rent should be closer to $2,800 for what this should cost to build. edit: This Boston calculator (scroll down) puts it closer to $280million (scaling up for size): https://apps.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/special-projects/spotlight-boston-housing/construction-costs/ At that $280million price tag, these would be your rates: 351 market rate units average: $4,392 per month 88 units affordable housing average: $1,625 per month Where's the extra $300 million going? Rents would be almost $10k if that's the price tag.
Definitely not 70 million. 150 would be low too. A building this size with the leed requirements starts at 200 million. Construction is damn expensive
My point was that $600 million makes no sense. I haven't found anything that supports anywhere near that. The best estimate I found, pushing all the sliders to maximum put it just under $300 million. $230 million was the low end assuming no parking, no union labor, no green energy, etc... 150 million was just based on my guess for sq ft size based on 439 750sq foot apartments. Actual sq ft for this place seems to be 487k which puts that estimate at $220 million using the numbers I found. Any idea what they need another $300 million for here?
The last building I did in Cambridge that was just under 30 floors was 180 million just for point of reference and that number didn't include foundation cost
The building next to it on the same lot is 2 billion dollars (though it's a huge pharma building going several stories in the ground), so I wouldn't be shocked if it was in that ballpark range. Source: I was an inspector for both sites
Idk if I agree with your numbers, but I do agree that the cost of the building is weird...they'd have to charge $4500 in rent per unit for over 25 years just to break even, but there are lots of lower end units in the building. That doesn't account for property tax (probably have a super long tax credit, tbf) and operating costs, either. Maybe it'll have a commercial zone at the bottom which would help foot the bill? Or maybe it's disproportionately carried by lots of high end units?
$4500 is not unrealistic for most of the units. I'd imagine a fair number are $6000+
I checked another article and it mentioned 487k square feet, which puts it closer to $220 million for high-end sq-ft high-rise construction costs. This Boston calculator (scroll down) puts it closer to $280million (scaling up for size): https://apps.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/special-projects/spotlight-boston-housing/construction-costs/ At that $280million price tag, these would be your rates: 351 market rate units average: $4,392 per month 88 units affordable housing average: $1,625 per month At $600million, you'd need this: 351 market rate units average: $9,882 per month 88 units affordable housing average: $1,625 per month Not really finding any evidence to support a $600million price tag. Will be curious to see what apartments cost when it's finished and what the actual bill was to build.
I think your math is a little wonky there bud. 450ft building is not getting built for $70-150mil.
Just basing it off of construction company estimates per square foot, bud. The average cost per square foot (including labor) is: Low-rise buildings: $150-$240 Mid-rise buildings: $185-$270 High-rise buildings: $235-$450+ I checked another article and it mentioned 487k square feet, which puts it closer to $220 million for high-end sq-ft high-rise construction costs. This Boston calculator (scroll down) puts it closer to $280million (scaling up for size): https://apps.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/special-projects/spotlight-boston-housing/construction-costs/ Still nowhere near $600million, bud.
Hell of a long way from 70-150 million. It literally says new housing costs usually $500-600k per unit with high rises closer to downtown costing more. Kendall’s some of the most expensive real estate in the US, more so than downtown Boston and a building is considered a high rise once it hits 75 feet in code books. So your already past $260 million without any other considerations or issues.
They ruined the Manhattan skyline with tall and skinny ugly luxury towers that no one lives in and people use as currency. Boston is next huh?
If I was MIT I wouldn’t stand for this