Category Archives: Office Development in Boston

0 New Boston Skyscrapers will Make — or Brake — the Skyline

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Copley square office buildings in Boston

Credit: Boston Globe

The greater Boston audience has an opinion about just about anything, including our skyline. This poses a challenge to Boston’s strongest developers and architects to reshape our city into something elegant, energizing, and functional.

From the Boston Globe:

No matter how elegantly they may be paved or planted, urban plazas are boring, windy, and little used, especially in weather like ours. The Prudential, back before its Arctic plazas were filled in with shopping arcades, was a good example. The Federal Reserve Bank, next to South Station, is another. It’s a handsome, eloquent Diva tower behind a plaza that has the charm of a recently abandoned battlefield.

As far as the public is concerned, cities aren’t made of buildings and plazas, anyway. Cities are made of streets and parks. From the point of view of urban design, the buildings are there to shape those public spaces and feed them with energy.

0 Designers Wanted for City Hall Project

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Boston City Hall Plaza

Credit: Boston Herald

Mayor Walsh wants your creative ideas for City Hall.  Let’s see what some of our creative thinkers will come up with.

From the Boston Herald:

Walsh announced plans to “re-envision” the plaza to make it a more inviting and attractive civic space for residents and visitors during this year’s State of the City address in January…The master plan will identify areas for improvements at City Hall and the plaza, including possible public-private ventures, historic considerations and approaches for reuse, according to the solicitation issued by the city’s Public Facilities Department. It will look at existing conditions, including land use and zoning, and develop detailed cost estimates for the recommended work and programming.

“(The) vendor will coordinate with city representatives, other stake holders and (a) community advisory council on all aspects of project,” the advertisement states. “(The) scope of work will include a visioning exercise, identifying goals and objectives, best practices for municipal services and civic spaces as they relate to Boston City Hall and the plaza.”

0 Boston Experiencing Historic Commercial Building Boom

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rendering of office tower at Belvidere and Dalton East

Credit: Boston Globe

The Boston skyline is on the move.  A Boston Globe editorial notes, “Boston is in the midst of a building boom never seen in its history, with an influx of new residents and companies giving rise to skyscraping towers, thousands of homes, and retail businesses that are redefining commercial districts citywide.” The Globe followed the article with a list of 50 of the largest development projects organized by expected square feet.

Among these office developments are projects at the Government Center Garage, South Station air rights, Tremont Crossing, and Landmark Center in Fenway.

Jump over to the Globe to read through its complete list of the top Boston Office Developments in progress.

 

0 Belkin Pushes for Winthrop Square Tower

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Winthrop Square Tower rendering

Credit: Boston Globe

Belkin is one of eight developers chasing the development opportunity at the Winthrop Square parking garage site. His plan is after a 24/7 model that incorporates a live, work play them that embraces the “Café Culture” of today.

From the Boston Globe:

At the centerpiece of Belkin’s 740-foot office and residential tower is an innovation center, one designed for entrepreneurs and those who aspire to be one. The description itself may be eye-glazing or eye-rolling at a time when everyone claims to be innovative, but to hear Belkin explain it, you feel like he’s onto something big. It’s an idea that could go a long way to break down the walls that divide our business community, ones that keep Kendall Square and Innovation District types from mingling with those in the Financial District.

 

0 Boston Commercial Real Estate Retrospective

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Boston office buildings line the skyline

Credit: The Boston Globe

The city of Boston that is home to a wide variety of college, universities, professional sports team, hospitals and companies is changing.  We have created the Back Bay, built office tower and now adding more buildings to our skyline.  No longer are the tower views home to companies, but residences.

The Boston Globe has put together a retrospective, “A new age for an old town”, tracing the Hub’s commercial transformation. The article notes the following:

Today, Boston Properties, one of the city’s most prolific builders, is developing a 17-story office building on the final parcel within the Prudential complex. Meanwhile, the area around the Pru is exploding with new projects and proposals for hotels and towering residential buildings.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary,” said Bob Richards, a partner at Transwestern RBJ. “What’s driving it is the top-tier labor talent in industries like technology and life sciences. The young people who work for those companies want to live in an urban environment.”

Not coincidentally, the city’s population is rising more rapidly than it has in decades. The total head count rose by nearly 30,000 people, to about 646,000, between 2010 and 2013, according to the US Census Bureau. That’s more population growth in three years than Boston experienced in the 1980s and ’90s combined.

0 Boston Office Market Ranks Third In Global Rent Growth

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view of Boston's office buildings over the water

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

Boston is 3rd in office rent growth for 2014 behind Singapore and San Francisco.  The factors that drive Boston are the innovative economy and the extensive university presence.  The YE Market Report (link below) goes through the Downtown Class B office market fundamentals.

“According to Banker&Tradesman, Boston ranked first globally with a 34.6-percent increase in capital value growth. Foreign investors drove up prices of the Boston region’s commercial real estate, with investors such as Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group and Norges Bank Investment Management buying trophy office buildings in Boston and Cambridge. The index is designed to identify which cities are changing the fastest by combining real estate data with socioeconomic factors.”

You can download a pdf of the report here: http://www.bostonrealestates.com/reports/year-end-2014/Downtown/YE-MarketReport-Downtown-lo.pdf

0 Back Bay and North Station May Get New Office Towers

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north station project

Credit: B&T

Boston Properties is moving forward with 2 major projects located at 2 transportation hubs.  Back Bay Station is the proposed spot of a new tower development, while North Station will benefit from the same.

From Banker and Tradesman:

The real estate investment trust said this morning it has entered a joint venture to acquire the air rights for the 377,000-square-foot initial phase of the North Station redevelopment. It also has signed a 44-year extension on its lease for the Clarendon Street parking garage with the state Department of Transportation, part of a larger proposal to build two towers containing offices, residences and retail above Back Bay Station. As part of the agreement, Boston Properties will take over management of the renovated station, which serves the Orange Line subway and several commuter rail lines.

 

0 Silicon Valley Takes Note of Boston Innovation

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cover of startup pub that touts Boston as an innovation hub

Credit: BBJ

Not only do we in Boston believe that we have a flurry of startup activity, other across the country believe so as well.

Here’s a quote from the BBJ that represents this perspective on the Hub:

“At almost every tech event I’ve been to in 2014, everyone ranging from entrepreneurs and investors to politicians has talked about the booming innovation scene in Boston, and how Boston needs to tout its successes.”

The complete Boston Business Journal article is available, here.

0 58-Story Project on Dalton Street to Include two 4 Season’s Hotels

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Boston will be home to two 4 Season’s hotels when Carpenter is done with the 58-story project on Dalton Street.

Christian Science plaza development in Boston

Credit: Boston Business Journal

From the BBJ:

Lot 1A is set to be the site of a 58-story tower with a hotel and restaurant as well as apartments, with open space planned for Lot 1B, according to documents filed with the Boston Redevelopment Authority in September 2013…a mid-rise tower is also planned on an adjacent parcel at 30 Dalton St., which an entity of Pritzger Realty Group of Chicago acquired in October for $21.9 million.