It may be that there are good times and better times to be a developer in Greater Boston – but there’s never an easy time.
From the very beginning of the process to the very end, developers face challenges in permitting, building and delivering their projects.
Obstructions from officials and protests from NIMBY neighbors can doom a development before a shovel ever enters the ground. Once ground has been broken, labor shortages and material costs cause delays and financial overruns. And even when the paint is dry and the floors are sealed, getting the utilities to turn on the heat and lights can cause additional headaches.
And those are just the expected challenges. Anyone who has ever tackled a home repair project knows that it will take at least twice as long, cost twice as much and requires many more trips to the hardware store than anticipated; multiple that by quite a bit and you’ll have some idea of what it takes to put up a new building in Boston.
But hope springs eternal and the area’s developers slog onward, rising to the challenges and raising buildings. You’d think after a few years they would tire of repeatedly, unexpectedly getting punched in the face (metaphorically), but plenty of developers not only make a living, they make a career. (Though there’s no doubt a personality component, the money really helps.)
As Banker & Tradesman’s astute readers have no doubt noticed, Boston is in the midst of another building boom. From luxury condos in East Boston to the Seaport’s disappearing parking lots to Millennium Tower, that shining beacon of progress in what was once the Combat Zone, Boston is reborn.
From the sidewalk it seems there’s a hole in the ground one day and a condo tower there the next, but that perspective is skewed. Developments now coming online or about to are the results of years, if not decades, of planning.
And inevitably, some of them are late. Some of them are very late. And some of the condo buyers waiting to move into those units are very annoyed. As Jim Morrison reports in this week’s paper, there are ways to manage a new unit owner’s expectations, but that process begins long before the delayed closing date. If it is not properly managed (and sometimes when it is), buyers are livid. Who wouldn’t be after a closing is delayed three times for total of six months after the initial date, as has happened in recent months?
Unfortunately that’s the reality of construction. It’s not only dangerous to overpromise in this industry, it’s downright stupid; even an honest best guess for a delivery date is likely to be wrong.
Caught between all of these conflicts are the developers, project managers and workers, unfairly maligned for events far beyond their control. Of course there are, shall we say, slippery characters in construction, as there are in all industries. There are back-room deals and intentional delays and money changes hands.
But for the most part, the city’s developers are just trying to produce a good product against long odds. And when they manage to do it on time in Boston, it’s nothing short of miraculous.
