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LendLease used a series of landscape architecture elements and 14 feet of fill to protect its new luxury residential project Clippership Wharf from future storms. Image courtesy of LendLease
We are in the midst of a luxury housing boom in Boston, and nowhere is that more apparent than on the East Boston waterfront.
While waterfront development is attractive to developers and consumers, it comes with additional regulatory requirements and design challenges that add cost and complexity. Along with these challenges come opportunities, some economic and some altruistic, all of which help to define a luxury brand based on a place. Building “luxury” product is not a question in a high cost environment. Defining what luxury means in an emerging market with exceptional, yet vulnerable physical attributes depends on what questions you ask. Importantly, what does it mean to develop and own waterfront real estate for the long term?
Some of the questions we can and should ask as developers weren’t even questions just a decade ago. How can you protect your site from rising sea levels and extreme weather events? At the same time, what steps can be taken to integrate the project with the waterfront and the neighboring community? How do you balance creating public access and dynamic experiences for residents? And, how can you do all this while distinguishing your project in a competitive rental and sales environment?
Forward Thinking Needed
Since we cannot create more waterfront, scarcity drives both the questions and the answers. Thoughtful solutions can protect the environment, the neighborhood, and the considerable investment required to execute waterfront projects.
Developing along the Boston waterfront comes with a complex tangle of regulatory and environmental reviews that must be navigated in addition to the rigorous planning and neighborhood processes. Various city, state and federal regulatory agencies have purview over setbacks, building heights, public amenities, wildlife, waste site cleanup and flood plains.
Many of today’s regulations were created by looking at historical data versus predicting what may happen in the future. With sea levels continuing to rise and the frequency of storms defying expectations, luxury developers should be forward-thinking in our approach. While we can, in most cases, afford to do what is compliant, we can’t afford not to look at solutions that go beyond mere compliance. Moving the goalposts isn’t always a natural developer instinct, but it needs to be if we are to face the undeniable effects of climate change.
Clippership Wharf, our project along the waterfront in East Boston, has provided us with some valuable lessons in goalpost moving. In raising the occupiable areas of the site much higher than required, creating a significant buffer from both current and future tide levels, we were met with a less than enthusiastic reception from the permitting and regulatory agencies. With the city now putting a greater emphasis on protecting the waterfront, many of the features we fought hard to protect during the entitlement phase of our project would be asked or required of us today. This is progress.
Beyond Resiliency, A Sense of Place
While today’s luxury buyer wants to protect their home from rising sea levels, they also are looking for an experience above the standard views and amenities. Rather than walling off the site, developers should consider how the neighborhood and residents alike can interact with the waterfront, and how the site fits in with the broader neighborhood.
At Clippership Wharf, we opted to focus on ground level experiences rather than rooftop ones, including 1,400 feet of new Harborwalk and a living shoreline influenced by daily tides that restores the water’s edge with salt water marshes and natural habitats. Raising the interior of the site afforded us the opportunity to create gathering spaces including amphitheaters, overlooks, a rocky beach and seating arrangements along sloped terraces. We’ve also programmed outdoor recreation activities like table tennis, a kayak launch, a transient water dock for visiting boaters, a dog park and a public art program that pays homage to East Boston’s long-standing arts culture.
Nick Iselin
While the luxury market in Boston remains competitive, buyers have a number of options, and luxury developers need to push the market forward when it comes to placemaking and building for the future. The projects that will have long-term success will create a sense of place and community that extends beyond the four walls of an apartment or condo and realize that the real luxury is being able to live on our scarce waterfront at all.
Nicholas Iselin is general manager of development at Lendlease Boston.
