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Small Franklin Street office building could become housing under city's downtown-housing pilot
By adamg on Tue, 12/19/2023 - 6:27pm
A local developer has filed plans to convert a small Franklin Street office and retail building into housing, under the city's pilot program aimed at bringing life back downtown through tax breaks for office-to-residential conversions.
In one of the first formal applications under the pilot program, developer Adam Burns of South Boston told the BPDA this week he wants to convert the office space in the six-story 281 Franklin St. into 15 residential units.
The building, erected in 1878, has a restaurant and shoe repair shop on the first floor, which would remain. Burns estimates it will cost $1.6 million to convert the office space into residential units, which would include the installation of kitchens and bathrooms for each unit.
If approved by the BPDA, Burns would get a 29-year break on property tax for the building, through an abatement of up to 75% of the building's assessed value. The city currently assesses the building at $3.3 million; it last sold in 2017 for $6.2 million, according to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds records.
Under the pilot, Burns and other developers would get fast tracked for city approval - in roughly three to six months, rather than the year or more it can take to win city approval the more traditional way.
Two or three of the units would be rented or sold to people making no more than 60% of the Boston area median income.
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Comments
Corner building
Lots of windows and the fire escape is already there.
Ironically it’s the older stock that’s the most convertible.
Yeah
except that elevator situation. That's.. um.. interesting.
I mean it pretty much makes the 1-2 bedroom apartments for folks with mobility issues (these will be prob the income requirement units) which is great
But no one else in the building gets access to that elevator unless you make friends with the person on your floor who has the elevator inside their unit.
But I am sure like many elevators in many of these smaller older stock buildings downtown the elevator's been around since the New Deal was passed. Old and rickety.
It’s only six stories though.
The whole north end is 5-story walkups. Not really a problem there.
But is it?
Most modern buildings above 2 stories have elevators for all to use. Not every one who uses an elevator is wheelchair bound nor qualifies for even being disabled. (I for one who broke a knee a few years back..)
Just because "every other building is" doesn't make it OK that this one is not.
The whole thing is just odd and feels like this guy couldn't rent office space, so this is what he's doing to fix his elevator issue. because we all know if this was a new building or a gut job, that elevator would have to be moved and updated. I guarantee that his plans has zero upgrades to that elevator and it still looks 1920s-ish.
I want more housing, but this is how these old landlords get around very expensive building upgrades is they do stuff like this. Kicking the can down 20-30 years so someone else can deal with it (or until the elevator fails and is no longer usable at all)
9 studios and 6 one bedroom units - families need not apply
The proposed project at 281 Franklin Street is part of the BPDA's Office to Residential Conversion Program. The project proposes the renovation and change in use for the existing 11,119 sq ft mixed-use building from Ground-Floor Restaurant and Offices above to Ground-Floor Restaurant and 15 residential apartment units above. Including 9 studio units and 6 one-bedroom units. With 3 IDP units (20% of proposed units).
Too bad not a single apartment was designed with a family in mind based on the nunber of bedrooms each unit gets :(
Makes sense
If they put a 3-bed in there, it's more than likely it would be three roommates who can outbid any regular family. Also, this is in the middle of the Financial Zone. Not the most attractive spot for a family with kids. This is somewhere people can have their own place rather than being one of three roommates in a family-sized home somewhere in a neighborhood. At scale, that frees up some of those homes for families.
Yes but what are we going to do with all these empty offices
If this program is successful , Are there enough young single folks or couples without kids to keep the potential new apartments rented and do we want another seaport or Southie? And what about using some of the vacant office space for schools or training facilities.
The Quincy school in Chinatown is seeing huge demand and Boston might need an additional school in the downtown area.
It's too bad so many people live in Boston when they are single , then meet a partner , and decide to move to Milton since Boston doesn't provide great options for families :(
Downtown is the last place
Downtown is the last place families should be. It should be for people who work downtown and can walk to work. We don't need more schools considering the amount of kids in Boston is shrinking.
You don't
get to decide who lives where.
Families can make a very lively downtown. I think there should be a mix of all.
Size
The floor plates don't seem conducive to larger units, unfortunately. The math wouldn't necessarily work out, either.
There are three bedroom units available in most new buildings. Rents start at $5,800 a month.
That's really okay
Not every building has to serve every purpose. This will be 15 fewer people sharing a family sized unit with roommates, meaning a few family sized units will come back on the market. Also, I grow tired of asking this question, but how many family units are at this location right now? Every bedroom added to our housing stock helps every person who needs to be housed.
Why the obsession with families?
Boston isn't lacking 3-4br units - it is lacking 1 and 2br ones.
If there are more smaller units, you won't have so many larger units taken up by roommate groups with 4 or 5 incomes and no childcare expenses.
City coffers
"The city currently assesses the building at $3.3 million; it last sold in 2017 for $6.2 million."
Why oh why is the building assessed at so much less than its last actual market value? This is a common practice of Boston Assessing and costs the City more millions than anyone can count. And, those with enough wealth to buy at current market values benefit.
And a 29-year tax break is nuts for two or three affordable units. Imagine how much the developer will net from market-rate units at $5,6, or $7,000 a month.
Boston leaves so much revenue on the table while wringing ever more tax out of existing home and small business owners.
And when will the administration actually ask wealthy institutions, Harvard et al, to cough up the small PILOT -Payment in Lieu of Taxes -the City asks for?
The current value
Is probably slightly less than the market value of the land if it were a vacant lot. The building is 145 years old and as cybah pointed out, the elevator was most likely put in about a century ago. It's Class C office space so there's little hope of getting any revenue from office tenants barring an unexpected reversal of the post-Covid trend toward hybrid/wfh arrangements.
I'm pretty astounded that the developer can do the conversion for only $1.6 million. I would have guessed much, much higher than that.
Small effort, small benefit
Small projects like this don't move the arrow much when it comes to increasing the supply. I don't think too much should be expected from them when it comes to tax revenue or anything like that.
To the person saying these will rent for 5, 6, or 7,000 per month, I don't think that's likely given the size and quality. $2,200 per month for the studios seem more likely, although I bet he lists for higher, $2,500 to $3,000, even. (These are almost SROs, let's be honest.)
As is pointed out, the owner is putting in just $100k per unit, so not a lot of fancy finishes. Therefore, the expected rents should be on the lower side.
Of course, costs are low, too.
There have been a couple of other small buildings sold during the past few weeks/months, and I'm guessing they still also be converted. (47-49 Winter Street, facing the Common, for one.)
I've been skeptical that there will be a lot of larger buildings being converted since the costs can outweigh the benefits.
I don't really have my finger on the pulse, though.
Regarding assessed values, I wish I knew the alchemy used when figuring out values. Values always come out lower than you would expect, or hope. Some is due to the delay in fiscal/calendar years, some is simply because there aren't a lot of comparison properties from which to estimate values.
Oh, but think about what you're saying. It was bought for $6 million in 2017, is assessed at $3 million now. Well, it's not worth $6 million now, is it, so maybe assessed value is more accurate.