Bruce Percelay
Title: Chairman and founder, The Mount Vernon Co.
Age: 58
Experience: 28 years
One thing you can’t say about Bruce Percelay is that he’s one-dimensional. Percelay is chairman and founder of real estate investment firm The Mount Vernon Co.; publisher of Nantucket Magazine and the Nantucket Gazette; the driving force behind the construction of Nantucket’s whaling museum; and one of the major backers of a new $75 – million Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Percelay’s path to real estate mogul was a little unusual. A Boston University graduate, Percelay was once editor-in-chief of the BU student newspaper, The Daily Free Press.
After a stint in advertising and marketing after graduation, Percelay settled on the more profitable world of real estate. His big project right now: The Allston Green District, containing three luxury buildings in the heart of what used to be a rundown warren of one-story garages covered with graffiti and frequented by the homeless and drug dealers. The buildings are close to public transit – key to Percelay’s green vision – and feature once-a-week rooftop yoga classes, a movie theater and dog-walking service. Rents start at $1,700 for a studio and go all the way up to $3,100 for a two-bedroom flat. The last of the trio of buildings on Brainerd Road will be complete next August. But make no mistake about it: Percelay isn’t finished.
Q: Allston is changing and you’re a big part of that. How do you envision the future of the neighborhood?
A: It’s kind of a tale of two Allstons right now. There are major things happening. There’s New Balance’s billion-dollar development, there’s Harvard’s billion-dollar plans, there’s us, there’s WGBH. But there are pockets of it that, have landlords that don’t particularly care about their properties. That gives Allston a bad name. That, I believe, given the increase in values of the market in general is going to start to put pressure on those neighborhoods. On Harvard Avenue, you’re already seeing cool places to eat, bars popping up. So I think that it is inevitable that the look and feel of Allston is going to change. It’s not going to become the Back Bay. It’s still going to be funky and young, but Allston never had quality housing alternatives. Now it does.
Q: You used to be the editor of The Daily Free Press?
A:We had an all-star cast. Bill O’Reilly was our political columnist. Joan Vennochi from the Globe was our reporter. A guy named Al Morganti, who’s been the sports editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer forever, was there. We had an unbelievably talented group. We had a hell of a group.
Q: Did you live in Allston when you were at BU?
A: When I ran The Daily Free Press, I lived on Egremont Street in Brighton. It made me realize why you don’t rent to guys because I was such a slob. I know Allston well. We have a number of BU professors here. BU’s campus is moving this direction. And we own a bunch of stuff on Brighton Avenue. We own 1,000 units in Allston-Brighton.
Q: So how did you go from journalism to advertising to development?
A: I always liked real estate. I loved advertising. But I kind of stepped in it. I wanted a place to live and I bought a $22,000 condo on Beacon Hill and I fixed it up and sold it for $44,000. And I just kept doing it. And one day I finally woke up and said I should be doing this for a living.
Q: What are your plans right now? Are you done in Allston?
A: We have another site we’re working on. We’re going to take this act to other places, wherever we can find development opportunities. This whole green thing resonates with people, and we think we can execute it better than other people, and it’s where the city is going anyway. But it’s expensive. What we do is not cheap, so if you’re a short-term holder or you’re doing this with a fund or a REIT, this doesn’t make sense because the premium to do what we do is high. So if you have to justify it economically right away, it’s not for you. But if you’re a long-term holder, it is.
Q: Is there a lot more demand for this type of housing in Boston?
A: This is our niche. There are thousands of luxury units being built down in the Seaport. Some of them are good locations and some not-so-good locations. And they’re all competing for the same tenant – $3,000-$6,000 units. The depth of demand is undetermined. We don’t know. If there’s 10,000 luxury apartments coming on the market, how do you know there are 10,000 luxury renters? Our properties are not at a ridiculous premium to what’s already here, so I would rather deliver a product that’s twice as good and maybe 15 percent more expensive in this market than deliver housing that’s twice as expensive when I have 10 times as much product being created in a market that hasn’t absorbed this kind of apartment before. We want to be the quality provider in the more market-rate neighborhoods.
Five Favorite Things About Allston:
- The funky bars and restaurants.
- The youthful energy.
- Great public transportation access.
- All of the exciting developments, including New Balance and the Harvard expansion.
- That it is the last development frontier in Boston.
