Archive for the 'Boston Retail Space' category

  The site is located at the intersection of Western Avenue and North Harvard Street.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority has approved Samuels & Associates' (developers of the Fenway Triangle  project, among many others) proposal for a 325-unit apartment project in the Barry's Corner section of Allston - after the developer agreed to increase the number of parking spots from 180 to 225.

Instead of adding more parking spaces to project, the developer made plans for valets to park cars in the development's parking garage if the original 180 spaces are in use. Improvements to Smith Field, a local park, were also added to the proposal.

In addition to the 325 new rental units, the project will also provide 45,000 square feet of ground floor retail and restaurant space. 40 on-street parking spots will be available for shopper use, in addition to the underground garage spaces.

The 2.7 acres parcel is owned by Harvard University, and is part of their quest to redevelop the area as a satellite campus. Construction will start this fall.

“The Barry’s Corner project represents an important first step in the redevelopment of North Allston,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said according to a release issued by the developer. “I commend Samuels & Associates and Harvard University for coming together to meet the needs of the community, which will now benefit from shops, activities, and beautiful public space right in their own backyard.” (Quote Source: Plan's for Barry's Corner Released, Harvard Magazine) 

 (Image Source: Boston Redevelopment Authority)

Further Reading:

Boston developer wins approval for Barry's Corner project in Allston, with help from valet parking (Boston Business Journal)

Harvard's Barry's Corner Projects Approved (Harvard Crimson)

Mayor Menino Announces: New Projects Moving Forward (Boston Redevelopment Authority) 

Photo Credit: Boston Globe

According to the Boston Courant, a proposed Fenway residential tower would add 320 apartments, but no parking spaces. The company developing the parcel, Samuels & Associates, owns Trilogy at 180 Brookline Ave. Trilogy reportedly contains sufficient parking to quell the demand that the new building would bring.
 
The proposed high rise, known as the "The Point," would be located at the corner of Brookline Avenue and Boylston Street. The 22-story tower’s proposed unit mix consists of studio, one, two, and three bedroom rentals. The ground level would also be home to 33,000 square feet of retail space.
 
Residents of the neighborhood have expressed concern that more parking spaces would increase the area’s air pollution and traffic congestion. Many were happy to learn that The Point would not include new parking spaces.
 
However, Fenway is a rapidly changing area and whether residents approve or not, there are new parking spaces being added. Children’s Hospital has plans for a 525-space parking garage near Kenmore Square. The proposed five-building mixed-use Fenway Center development would also include 1,290 new spaces.
 
The Point isn’t the only thing Samuels & Associates is building in Fenway. The company is also responsible for the 1325 Fenway Triangle project (also know as Boylston West), located at 1325 Boylston Street, between Yawkey Way and Kilmarnock Street. Like the Point, the 700,000 SF Fenway Triangle project goes beyond residential, and will include office, retail, restaurants, and a Target store.

Read More: "Residential tower pitched for the Fenway" [Boston Globe]

(Sketch of Millennium Place's exterior)

The latest in a series of brand new construction projects that have seemingly invaded the Boston area within recent years, Millennium Place is the newest addition to the multi-million dollar projects slated for release within the coming months in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood.  Originally named Hayward Place, the $220 million project will be adding another 256 rental units to the notoriously low inventory of the Boston market just in time for the rental season of 2013.  The 15 story residential structure, which has since been renamed, Millennium Place earlier this year is underdevelopment by Millennium Partners on lower Washington Street, and will feature one, two, and three bedroom units.

    •    256 Rental units
    •    Expected Fall 2013
    •    Sports Club/LA fitness center on-site
    •    Private screening theater
    •    Children’s Room daycare facility
    •    Private garden green for residents

The 390,000 square foot endeavor will also include 125 individual underground parking spaces, and will retain nearly 10,000 square feet street level retail space reserved for shops and businesses.  The once vacant parking lot will now be a new destination for home owners and businesses in the area that Mayor Thomas Menino has been trying to breathe new life into for over a decade.  Since 2002, the Downtown Crossing area has seen record transformation and investment; which is a miracle to say the least for an area that during the 1970s, used to be dominated by strip-clubs, bars, and other less than savory businesses. 

Millennium Place takes joins others in a sea of new construction projects in the neighborhood, standing opposite the Millennium Partners built Ritz-Carlton Boston Commons Hotel, and will be joined by the current Kensington project; which will add another 381 rental units to the growing area within the next year or so.  Despite these tumultuous economic times felt by many, investors and entrepreneurs continue to invest in the Boston area, and developers will continue to provide new and luxurious housing to a market that remains competitive and ever-growing.  Downtown Crossing is just one example of a Boston neighborhood that is expanding to meet the demands of new tenants in a city where housing is always in demand!

Related Property Listings and Immediate Availabilities:
Millennium Place Boston

For more information regarding rental housing in Boston’s Downtown Crossing, please contact me. I can assist you with finding an apartment in Downtown Crossing:

Jonathan Goldman, Residential Leasing Associate
T: 617 850 9614
email: jgoldman@bradvisors.com
 

The Renaissance continues in Downtown Crossing, with $3.2 million in city funds slated for improvements in the area, including sidewalk repairs, new illuminated street signs, street repaving, and bike racks.

“It’s time for us to go back into the Downtown Crossing area and do some reinvestments there, because things are changing and new businesses keep wanting to come there,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino is quoted by the Globe.

In addition, developers in the area are expected to make $10 million in privately funded improvements, including a new entryway for the MBTA station at Franklin and Washington Streets.

Over the next four years, 1,200 housing units will be built in and around Downtown Crossing, drawing some 3,000 residents to the area.

In the same vein of revitalization, a total of ten new restaurants have recently opened or are on the horizon. Back Deck, a collaboration of Bradley Fredericks of Fajitas and Ritas fame and acclaimed chef Paul Sussman, opened earlier this summer on West Street.

407 Washington Street is a 7-story, 25,616 SF mixed-use development opportunity. 

This is an opportune time for investors to capitalize on Downtown Crossing. Boston Realty Advisors has been retained as the exclusive agent for the sale of 407 Washington Street, located in the heart of Downtown Crossing directly across from the Millennium Tower project. Although historically occupied by retail users, 407 Washington is fully permitted and approved for 8,000 SF of retail and 14 residential units. Its current unoccupied status allows for easy renovations. For more information about this offering, please visit 407Washington.com.

• Downtown Crossing to get $3.2m face lift (Boston Globe)
• Boston's Downtown Crossing to get $3.2M touch up (Boston Business Journal)

As I am sure many of you have read, Boston is undergoing several transformations throughout several of its neighborhoods. Some are undergoing new additions, while others are getting renovated.

Here is an inside look with David Manfredi, principal of Elkus Manfredi Architects, whose firm happens to be one of which that is highly involved with several current/upcoming projects.

"Given all the development in places like Dudley Square, the Fenway, and the South Boston Waterfront, how do you expect the design and atmosphere of the city to change in coming years?

We’re very fortunate, planners and architects especially, to be in Boston. There is activity here, and there are large parts of the country where there’s not nearly as much activity. What’s exciting is that we have this incredible waterfront that sits right next to our downtown, and there is a lot of development there now. It’s not like we’re building at the edges; we’re building so close to the heart of everything." ...Read more HERE (photo credit boston.com) 

Boston Realty Advisors (BRA) was featured in the July 15th, 2011 issue of The Real Reporter because they are currently handling two exciting listings in Back Bay that will prove to be great rehabilitation projects. 

493-497 Commonwealth Avenue

Formerly the JS Waterman Funeral Home, BRA's listing at 493-497 Commonwealth Avenue has been out of use for several years, and is finally going to be brought back to life.  It is a 19,500 building currently in "shell condition."  This makes the building a blank canvas.  It may possibly become a residential space, but the central location could make for great offices or other forms of commercial space.  The building is right on the edge of Kenmore square, which is a great area and will soon benefit from major improvements to Boston's Green Line.  Boston Realty Advisors has not announced any definite details of a deal, but whatever happens, Kenmore square will soon have a new great space.

463 Beacon Street

Just a few blocks away, this beautiful building is currently a 20-room lodging house offering nightly and weekly rates.  This property may stay as is, but according to BRA founder Jason Weissman, it is possible that the space may work as a single household.  He also told The Real Reporter that converting the space to condominiums could be a viable and possibly more valuable solution.  The building has 2,400 square feet of frontage on Beacon street, easy access to Massachusetts Avenue and a slew of prestigious Universities, and six parking spaces in the rear.

Interested in these listings or looking for more information on buying or renting real estate in the Boston area?  Contact Boston Realty Advisors today!

 It appears that Boston real estate developers are finally believing that the recent and expected successes of Boston luxury Condos and Boston luxury Apartments are critical to the viability of commercial development such as the blighted Downtown Crossing's "Filene's Project."

The Boston Globe Article  says it all - there is quite a bit of interest in the purchase of the Filene's development site from Vornado who stopped development due to the downturn in the market a few years ago.

This is not the case in all cities across the country and not so in all of Massachusetts or even all parts of Boston. In any case, we should be pleased that there are positive signs of recovery.

Posted by : David Friedberg, CEO - Residential Division

Wait ’Til Next Year?

Tight pre-leasing requirements and a dramatic slide in rents and commercial values all but iced new construction in 2009, and at a recent NAIOP Massachusetts roundtable, Portfolio & Property Research CEO Bret Wilkerson predicted that office incomes would not trend upward again until 2011. That presumption, on its face, would seem to preclude all construction but build-to-suits (a quietly strong category in 2009).

However, Wilkerson and others have predicted a sharp swing upward in rents from 2011 to 2013. Wilkerson predicted a “phenomenally interesting and exciting cycle” beginning in 2011, and said Boston is PPR’s top market nationally for forecast rent growth until 2013. But unless the commercial financing environment evolves dramatically, and quickly, few new developments will be in a position to take advantage of that upswing. Eighty-five percent of Banker & Tradesman readers said they believe it is either not very likely or not at all likely that lenders will make commercial development loans available at reasonable terms in 2010.

In addition to the stalled Filene’s tower, two other high-profile Hub developments illustrate the harsh lending terms developers will have to navigate in 2010. Boston Properties had to swallow a tough recourse provision to get a club of five lenders to issue a $215 million construction loan for its Russia Wharf office tower in Boston – a project substantially pre-leased to Wellington Management. The loan amounts to less than half the tower’s $550 million construction tab. And when a group of three lenders refinanced the new Center for Life Sciences Boston, Biomed Realty Trust’s Longwood research tower, the San Diego-based REIT had to increase its equity position by $150 million, replacing a $500 million construction loan with a $350 million mortgage.

Retailer's Runway: 2009
This year's participants in the ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers) Retailer's Runway were:

Auto Zone
Dollar Tree
Game Stop
Haloween Venture
Hobby Lobby
Kiddie Academy
Muscle Maker Grill
Planet Fitness
REI Sporting Goods
Rosa Mexicano Restaurants
Shoprite
Sonic
TD Bank
Wingstop Restaurants

The growth oriented segments in retail this year are value focused shopping, and appropriately so.  This line up is extremely reflective of this trend.

Retailer, Dollar Tree reporting opening 240 new locations in 2009 at the runway, having a total of 3,800 stores nationwide.  Their focus in
2010-2011 will be urban, in contrast to their typically suburban stores.

Sonic, the retro-future drive-in fast food restaurant reported opening
141 franchises in the 2009 fiscal year.  While this is down from their
2008 169 number, it still represents promising expansion.  Their current focus is on penetrating the northeast market.  Their new Peabody, MA location set the record for opening week revenue by more than 4 times the prior record holder.  With almost 3,600 locations across 42 states, the current #1 drive in chain in the U.S. shows promise.

TD Bank and Gamstop were amongst others with impressive growth statistics and substantial presentations.

For more information on retail real estate, please contact Jason Weissman here.

Stay tuned for more ICSC LIVE updates!  

The Tannery shoe store will open its fourth and largest retail  location at 711 Boylston Street within the next week.  The two story 11,000 square foot location, formerly Restoration Hardware, will showcase the retailer’s largest collection of shoes, clothing and accessories.

The second level of the space will be home to the concept, “Curated at the Tannery,” which will be dedicated to a more youthful, technical and alternative product mix in contrast to the sophisticated, high-end product environment on the street level.

The Tannery is an independent shoe retailer owned by brothers Tarek and Talal Hassan, which has grown substantially since it first opened its doors 35 years ago.  With two locations in Cambridge and one already on Boylston street, this expansion to the Newbury St./Boylston/Back Bay submarket represents a marked changed in Back Bay retail leasing activity.

This opening is a welcome addition to the retail scene in Back Bay.  As of today, the build-out looks to be almost 100% complete as their window displays and inventory are already displayed and apparent through the expansive windows wrapping the corner of Boylston and Exeter Streets.

On behalf of Boston Realty Advisors, we wish the Tannery and its proprietors much success and welcome them to the neighborhood.

To learn more about current leasing opportunities in the greater Boston area, please contact our Retail Leasing Director, Jim Speros.