Gov. Charlie Baker is pushing ahead with plans to sell Boston’s Hurley Building to a developer, but oddballs with a misbegotten love for Brutalist architecture are riding to its rescue, unable or unwilling to acknowledge its frankly totalitarian overtones.
While developers of new office towers are betting on no recession, or a very shallow one, apartment and condo builders are clearly looking at the future a bit more warily. Both sides can’t be right here.
With lawmakers on Beacon Hill once again dithering over the state budget and, having blown a deadline weeks ago with the arrival of the new fiscal year, things certainly aren’t looking great for zoning reform legislation. But some are optimistic a turning point is near.
With restaurants a key component of many mixed-use projects today, Massachusetts’ outdated liquor license system creates many challenges for developers. A new “umbrella” license bill hopes to fix that.
To listen to all the corporate speak coming out of Raytheon and United Technologies over the past few days, you’d think one of the biggest mergers in New England history will involve all gain and no pain.
Some affluent suburbs like Weston are trying to use age-restricted Chapter 40B affordable housing developments to gain “safe harbor” from the law without helping change the dynamics of the regional real estate market.
The Trump plan is a big wet kiss for Wall Street, which can’t wait to recapitalize the two mortgage giants, but not so much for taxpayers who, whatever promises are made, will surely end up on the hook again someday should things go south.
While the urban core in Boston and its environs appears poised for continued growth amid an explosion of luxury condominium and apartment towers, it’s a different picture in the suburbs, where the loss of major anchor stores is hitting the hardest.
Beware of a business model that involves betting the house – or, in this case, the office tower – on the ability to push already sky-high rents ever higher, year after year, recessions be damned.
The dirty little secret is that town officials like over-55 projects mainly because of what they aren’t: New homes and apartments that would attract families with children to their community.
