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Boston could get its first $37.5-million condo
By adamg on Wed, 10/22/2014 - 11:30pm
The Boston Business Journal reports on the possible asking price of the penthouse at the top of the Millennium Tower now rising from the Filene's Hole. No word if it'll be automatically marked down 25% if it doesn't sell after the first 12 days.
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BRA you're doing it wrong
Downtown Crossing is having an identity crisis and needs immediate therapy. $37m condos amongst a double stack of discount retailers (Marshalls, TJ Maxx) mirrors that of the diamond dealers with junkies out front looking for a fix. Boston Redevelopment Authority, I know one of you is reading this. Downtown Crossing is a wasteland of riffraff, shuttered storefronts and discount retailers and outlets. Work towards finding meaningful ways to level the playing field instead of widening the gap between homeless and the ultra-rich. How can Boston Art Windows be revived for Washington Street and surrounding streets? There have been vacant commercial spaces for years. Work to fill the windows with art installations or even educational information about Boston. If you can't find time or money to do this, enlist undergrads in a relevant area of study to make this happen. It would enhance the experience of visiting the area and allow potential commercial tenants to visualize a potential investment better.
This.
"mirrors that of the diamond dealers with junkies out front looking for a fix."
I bought my wedding rings in the Jeweler's Building. It was a great experience in a funky old building until the purchase was done, the jeweler handed us the bag, and we realized we had to walk outside in DTX carrying a bag emblazoned with a giant jeweler's logo.
Same thing here
I turned my bag inside out before I left the building.
OH NO, DTX IS SO SCARY...
OH NO, DTX IS SO SCARY...
Stop clutching your pearls and worrying so much. Sure, there are some homeless people and teenage toughs hanging out downtown, but to think it's just a bad place is ridiculous. A wide variety of people go through there every day, to work, to hang, to shop, and while it may not meet your standards, it's apparently doing well enough that Millenium Partners is going to rake in serious money selling the Penthouse.
Maybe the city should just tell them to forget it and put the whole back in, and turn down all that property tax revenue and the money that upscale residents might bring to the neighborhood...
Do you live or work in DTX?
Do you pay attention on Uhub about all the people complaining about how bad it is? Also did you see on here in the last week alone there were TWO robberies IN BROAD DAY LIGHT?!? (both on the same day!)
Yeah I didn't think so.
I work downtown and have frequented DTX for many years (even when I didn't work in the area), and trust me, the OP and the first reply are 100% correct. Its gotten awful. I've been accosted coming out of ATM machines for money. You cannot walk more than a few feet without to being asked for money or see some junkie all keel'd over.
At night? Its even worse because all the office workers go home and all that is left are the homeless folks wandering around.
I'm a very tall, big and pretty mean looking guy. Most people will leave me alone. But when *I* don't feel safe, there's a problem with the area.
Seriously, go for a walk along Summer Street between Park and South Station after 8pm, and you'll be scared too.
PS - Did you ever stop to think that whoever can afford that Penthouse apartment are not going to be walking the streets? I guarantee there will be an elevator that will take them to the covered parking garage and they will leave in their car.
As you suggest the owner may not care what is going on the stree
But it might also be that is because he/she will only be in the building a few weeks a year.
I work near DTX, and walk
I work near DTX, and walk through there quite a bit. I am big, and could be construed as looking mean depending on what I wear (usually a pretty un-intimidating business casual).
I used to walk down Summer form the Seaport to DTX to jump on the Orange Line back when I worked down there (for the last few years until recently).
I feel safe. Yes, there have been a couple robberies, but that happens in other parts of the city that I've lived (JP, Allston), and I still walked around those places without being afraid.
I don't know you and you don't know me, so I can only begin to speculate why we feel differently down there.
Maybe listen instead...
of just going on your own feelings and dismissing other people's experiences. The folks here have some very valid points. I've been going to DTX for 40+ years. It's always had sketchy elements but there is definitely a new sense of desolation and yes, menace. IMO it's more the dwindling or absence of the elements that made it a lively, healthy place--bustling retail stores like Filene's and the Basement that drew both the law partners returning from lunch at Locke's AND their secretaries AND teenagers out shopping for sneakers. It's emptier and bleaker. I don't see or feel as much of a police presence as there used to be--or maybe they're just busier chasing junkies. And yes-- there's an incredible number of twitchy, angry, or slightly out of their mind people hanging out there. There have always been homeless people and a variety of ambling "bums" and "winos" but this is different. So--I'm glad you feel safe. After a lifetime--literally--of visiting DTX I now find myself avoiding it, especially at night. Sad.
^^^ AGREE
100% Agree with ya Sally.
I've been going to DTX since long before I ever moved to Boston (I used to come down just to shop at the basement), and I feel the same exact way.
Worse at night, too. Thanks
Worse at night, too. Thanks to drunk Suffolk and Emerson students (their dorms are there now) and club kids heading back home.
I'm not feeling it
I have meetings and dinners for work that run later into the evening. The only thing I noticed in this go around is a higher number of homeless campers due to the closing of the big shelter.
I've honestly never been concerned about walking to the red line to get home - even though it involves *that* stretch of summer street more often than not.
If anything, the greater student population in the area means more people living in the area, rather than just loitering. More people with a vested interest in security. I don't get where this "thanks Suffolk and Emerson" is coming from there - lights + people = safety. The drunk kids are mostly just noisy.
Then again, I lived in Boston (Kenmore Square) in the 80s, and frequently wandered to Central Square in Cambridge, so maybe my sketch senses are calibrated differently. Junkies generally want to be left alone, and panhandlers are usually gone by 9pm.
Friday night at 2am is where
Friday night at 2am is when you see this.
The loss of Borders....
... rteally made a big difference.
Zip it, Mother Teresa.
Zip it, Mother Teresa.
You actually beat my estimate by 30 minutes for someone posting a contrarian argument trying to guilt me into feeling bad about myself for turning a dumb bag inside out before I walked out of a jewelry store with a sentimental purchase that took me a LONG time to save up for.
Yes, exactly, a wide variety of people. Implies both good and bad - I work in the area and I can attest to it being a complete drug bazaar in some spots.
You literally have nothing to gain by rolling the dice like a dope and flaunting a purchase like that, and that goes for ANYWHERE, except for patting yourself on the back for being such a wonderful open-minded individual.
Not sure why my comments make
Not sure why my comments make me Mother Teresa, but I don't fault you for turning your bag inside out, I just think the sentiments associated with commentary on the folks who hang out downtown are overblown and judgmental without actual knowledge of who they are.
Do whatever you want with your bag.
You danced around it, but you
You danced around it, but you basically implied he was a racist and that you were some sort of ultra-tolerant water-walker.
Take your tedious humblebrag someplace else. Maybe you and Swirly can go start a club for all the tough humble people out there.
Downtown crossing is a sketch-hole and that's why it died as a shopping area. Nobody is going to shop there when they can go almost anywhere else that's more pleasant. Look how much more prosperous Harvard square got after most of the psychotic LSD-addled psychology department dropouts disappeared. DTX would be similarly better off without the crapgames, drug deals, and muggings.
Umm, have you been there in a
Umm, have you been there in a while? It's pretty scary, especially after dark and after most people have left work.
I'm a huge fan of Boston, but if I had $37+ million, I wouldn't live in DTC.
Your statements are internally inconsistent
Does not match with:
Are you suggesting that segregating wealthy and poor is an effective means of achieving this end? Really? That wealthy people never seeing any of this is the answer?
Pulling wealthy people downtown, where few people currently live, seems like a great idea to me. They get to live where it is convenient, and they don't push more people out of close-in areas. Meanwhile, they also get to see poor people, rather than pretend that they don't exist.
Yes
Yes they can look at them from their top floor apartment like ants that need to be squashed.. or while they leave the parking deck inside their tinted window Lincoln TownCar
/snark
Why does everyone think rich people are evil?
Sure a few are, but I know a fair number of people who are probably worth more than $10 million (I'm assuming that because they don't exactly tell me the number). To a person they are really nice people, incredibly generous with both their time and their wealth - and wonderful parents/grandparents etc.
All that stuff they buy gives the rest of us jobs. All the causes they contribute to give us the arts, and medicine and education. Places like the Pine Street Inn, the Vets Shelter and Angies Place don't get by on $50 donations.
VERY VERY few people in this country inherited their money - they got it from working their butts off, inventing things, starting companies, taking risk, hiring schmucks like us etc.
And most of all, remember that with no rich people, we are ALL poor. Plenty of places like that if you prefer them.
To answer your question: It's
To answer your question: It's jealousy and the inability to see other people that don't share their same life status as anything but caricatures.
Take a look at the Skatepark
That's being dedicated today and being built by the Lynch Foundation. Peter Lynch is one of those evil Wall Streeters, but since leaving Fidelity he has donated millions and millions of dollars to charities around the city/state.
I wouldn't read
I wouldn't read too much into charity donations from rich folks.. many do it as large tax write offs, not because they are nice.
A company I used to work for did this thing about hiring veterans.. not because an exec was a veteran (non are) or felt bad for them, but because they got a huge tax write off. (thanks Obama!)
It looks like a 'good thing', but really, its just a way to not pay more taxes.
About the only three super rich people I'd say ARE being nice with charity donations and aren't looking for some tax write off, are Bill and Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett.
There's that caricature again
There's that caricature again. You don't know anything about the personal reasoning behind donations. If they stated vested interest would you say they are lying/PR stunt?
and
neither do you.
I can speak for the former company I worked for though :) So no assumption there.
Oh really?
How do you know Warren Buffet isn't looking for write-offs? You don't think he takes them?
The Lynch family has done more for this city than anyone else I've ever seen.
I don't
See above. And neither do you. I think that was the point.. it's all speculation. (except I can speak for the company I worked for in the above post)
Methinks that
gotdatwmd has a great old yearning in his/her belly to one day be in the "1 percent"? (or, perhaps, he/she already is?)
I do well but in my line of
I do well but in my line of work I encounter very, very wealthy individuals regularly who by and large do not fit the stereotype of the racist, selfish, wealth obsessed megalomaniacs that so many imagine they are. High income does not automatically make you a sociopath.
Top 1%
According to the IRS, the top 1% make > $380K.
If someone offered you $400k to do what you do, would you turn it down?
Didn't think so.
Really earned
I don't think people are out on the street just with several hundred grand just hoping to find someone who can take their several hundred grand, and frankly there are very few skills (if any) that can put you much above that salary just simply out of talent and a fair market evaluation of need.
So if you're earning that much, there's a pretty good chance that you did some stepping on people to get there, there's good odds that you came from a home that could send you to an elite, probably private (or otherwise social class selective) school system, and you certainly probably are doing more saving than either spending or donating, even if you're Gates or Buffet (who also, certainly, exploited and stepped on people to get where they are). That's not to say that the people are bad people (a few, like Charles Koch or the owners of Wallmart are demonic, but that's not a representation by any stretch) but there is very frequently a bit of a "take more than give" dynamic in these situations amplified by the fact that they are indeed in a position where any bit of sociopathic behavior has some major consequences for people in need but is somewhat encouraged by our culture in order to achieve that status in the first place. That's not unique, but this class of people generally works very hard to deny that they work this way, and often points to people in other classes as being the prime cause of "the problem". I'm sure we all would if we could, but let's stop pretending that the rich have a "right" to their earnings more than the middle class (often taxed about 50% of their earnings after assorted federal, state, and local taxes) do, or that donating less than the tax disparity after loopholes somehow makes actively expanding the loopholes okay.
I don't have a problem with the condo selling (or being bought) for that price though. I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to live in DTX that much, but it's a nice publicity stunt, and a good way for the developers to attract attention and possibly even push the city to consider acting as if they might get some revenue from the area (if they clean it up). If I had a cool 38 mill to drop on a home, though, I think I would go look for one of those European castles that costs less than an NYC condo, and use the difference to pay full time staff to live there the rest of their lives there and keep the heat on just in case I wanted to drop in. You know, unless I felt a compelling urg to be downwind of drunk Red Sox fans for the rest of my life...
You don't seem to understand tax deductions
Let say some guy has an extra $100,000
Assume his total incremental tax bracket is 40% (Fed + state).
If he keeps the $100k, he has $100k
If he donates the $100k, he deducts it, so that's $40k he doesn't pay in taxes. But he's still out $60k. So tell me, how did this guy make out?
The one time things can go awry is if someone donates something of value and claims it's worth a lot more than it is.
People give money because they want to give money - period. Your generalization of rich people is just like a generalization of gays - non-sensical.
Uh
But he would still have to pay taxes on 100k if he kept it all, vs taxes on 60k
No, people give money because they want to look good. Sorry. I don't buy the argument or anyone else's for that matter. No one likes a rich old bag who never spends a dime. People LIKE when money is given away. Its all PR folks, and if you believe otherwise, I have some ocean front property in Hadley to sell you.
I really could go on about how the rich set many our polices and bribe our politicians. Or even better, how many of our own politicians are millionaires.
Or how the rich are keeping the poor poor.
OH lets pull the Walton Family into the argument. More money than God, Yet their employees qualify for welfare because the Walton family actively fights minimum wages because they don't want to lose any money? Oh yeah, and don't you know that WalMart's Employee Charity gives more money than then Walton Family's ever does. Wanna run how "rich people are nice" by me again.
I could bring up even more examples of how the rich are doing the rest of us no favors and its all for PR just so they can keep the rest of us at bay and not riot in the streets, hunt them down, and hang them by a cross.
But why bother, even if I went and spent some time writing a valid point, people would just find a way to discredit me, so why bother wasting the energy. So I'm not going to bother. Not worth my time arguing on the internet with people I don't know. If you want to hear my argument, come meet me for a beer, in person.
(because this is where I am heading now.. so toodles, folks)
Good thing you're not an accountant
First, that statement makes no sense. You figure it out.
And Yes, the $100k donation really only cost him $60k because he didn't have to pay $40k in taxes, but he's still out $60k. He didn't gain anything.
Sure, pick and choose a few famous names to pick on and equate all rich people (whatever "rich" is) to them. Great example. Generalizations are just that - generalizations.
Correct
Correct I'm not one. This is why I pay someone else to do them :)
Right and as I said above, I could go on and on and on and on because I could find more 'bad rich guys' than 'good rich guys'. The bad far out number the rich. That is a fact, not a generalization.
If the 'nice rich people' were so nice, maybe instead of having write offs and doing 'feel good' donations and charities, maybe they could really put their money where their mouth is and not oppose the minimum wage, or nationalized healthcare, or social services or something that actually benefits a ton of people. But no, they won't because that would hurt their bottom line and bank accounts.
But whatever.. keep drinking that kool aid.. some day you'll have super powers too!
Just so we're all clear
Is your assertion that, on average, there are more "bad" rich people than "bad" poor people?
We will ignore, for a second, that this entire discussion is about a subjective as you can possibly get.
So a rich guy buys, oh, a big boat
and how does that "give the rest of us" jobs? Sure, the folks that build the thing have employment but the last time I check we had...oh...around 9 million folks unemployed.
And, actually...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiasavchuk/2014/10/06/wealthy-americans-ar...
But keep on belivin that good, ole (and disproved) trickle down economics crap.
THANK YOU
Thank you for proving my point.
Mix is good but as DTX get
Mix is good but as DTX get seedier, ultra-rich aren't going to change things any more than the quasi-affluent or middle-class, so why make the gap between richer and poorer even wider? Minds need to come together and look at more than tax revenues and start thinking about livability, walkability, and shopability. Do most go to DTX because they want to or because they have to? The supermarket is a good start but we're not there yet. Peek at the thriving downtown neighborhoods in Chicago, Kyoto, Austin. Chicago has it's seediness but their State Street is nowhere near as dicey. The class gap isn't nearly as pronounced as on Washingnton Street.
We've heard these arguments before
In the South End, Kenmore Square, even Roslindale. Money will win out (crime aside, no, that's not always a good thing).
I think there's probably a middle ground
A $37 million condo is not going to elevate the state of the junkies on Washington Street. And no one who pays that much is going to be spending time pondering the human condition at the St. Francis house, or, as someone else pointed out, even getting out if their car. I mean...there's wealthy and there's obscene--$37 million falls well over the line, IMO...
It strikes me as odd when
It strikes me as odd when people suggest that people that live downtown "never get out of their cars". I live right downtown, to a *person* everyone I know here walks all over the place.
I used to live there too
and I walked everywhere too. But I don't think either of us were living in a $37 million condo. And that's the difference, I think, between the rich and the super rich. I don't hate rich people. Or even super rich people. But once you hit a certain level of crazy, you cease to be the kind of guy who walks to the office from your condo five blocks away.
The only thing DTX needs is
The only thing DTX needs is the Long Island Homeless Shelter re-opened. Everyone claiming this is some existential crisis needs to calm their dander.
Russian billionaires will
Russian billionaires will probably buy these $30, million dollar plus condo's, billionaire Chinese nationals are also buying up property from the Back bay to the East Boston neighborhood, to new sprawling homes in towns like Lexington.
Boston has finally arrived with Manhattan NYC real estate pricetags, and it will drive out the middleclass.
Marshall's and TJ Maxx don't make a neighborhood bad
unless you think East Cambridge, or the Fresh Pond Mall (next door to a Whole Foods), or Brookline Ave in the Fenway , or Boylston St in Back Bay, are bad places.
And both stores (along with H&M in the same building) are a step up the economic ladder from the Woolworth's they collectively replaced.
Poggenpohl kitchens
I wasn't sure if $37.5M was worth it or not until I saw that the units have Poggenpohl kitchens. No idea what that is, but it sounds great. Had to google it.
That's it, I'm sold.
If I play hardball and bargain them down to a more afforable $35M, put down $100K and borrow $34.9M at 4%, I think I can do it. Without considering property tax, that's monthly payment of $166,617. Piece o' cake, sign me up. Maybe I'll buy two, knock the walls down and join them.
Wonder what the condo fees are?
Meh
You can get a lot of the same internal kitchen cabinet hardware at IKEA.
Seriously - I have flatpack cabinets, but with the drawer closers that slow the speed of closing and then neatly pull themselves shut.
My overhead cupboard door hinges even say "Ferrari" on them!
Once you go flat ...
Except it's crap particle
Except it's crap particle board.
not necessarily
Mine aren't. Depends on which ones you buy.
The ones at Ikea are made of
The ones at Ikea are made of cheap material, that's why they're cheap. Do your research before you buy.
I do research for a living
I did my research on these, too.
Eight years in, nothing has broken or had any issues. Not even the hacks we put together for toe-kick drawers and such. Every pull out and drawer is in heavy use, too. I didn't buy their lowest end stuff - they have a range and mine are actual wood.
Maybe you should check into research yourself? Or are you the type who can do without your kitchen for an additional month because one or two cabinets were damaged in shipment and it takes that long to get the replacements? (instead of just returning the broken part)?
Excellent, then you should be
Excellent, then you should be all good!
Someone posted yesterday
Someone posted yesterday about how predictable the comments are here about the current state of DTX and they are right.
I am one of the predictable ones. I live on Tremont across from the Common, I work downtown, I walk my dog every day everywhere. I am all "cut me a break, lots of people post here who come in from the 'bubs and are scared of people that don't look like and behave like them."
No matter how passionate people are in their comments here the experiences they relate are anecdotal and subjective. One person's menacing junkie is another person's urban diversity.
Facts are facts though. There have *always* been people down on their luck hanging out downtown, at east for the 55 years I have been around. There is very little violent crime downtown, especially adjusted for the number of people there.
As for $37.5M condos verses shitty storefronts on Washington Street, maybe the two are related and the trajectory is in the right direction but the impact of one on the other is not instantaneous? It's not one condo, it is hundreds of them, the area is changing significantly and very rapidly.
I predict, and you can save this url to shove back in my face, that DTX will be a very different looking place in two years.
One person's menacing junkie
Personally, I don't consider a junkie 'urban diversity.' I consider a junkie a junkie. There's nothing hip, urban, cool or diverse about junkies.
I'll have to defer to your
I'll have to defer to your junkie-detecting superpowers.
Maybe you should direct your
Maybe you should direct your comment to the person who thinks junkies are hipster cool. Junkies need medical treatment, not your scorn.
My point was that no one can
My point was that no one can tell if someone is a "junkie" by looking at them. Save your judgement.
carty
You were the one judging the junkies in this comment: By Carty on Thu, 10/23/2014 - 12:58pm.
I was responding to your nonchalant attitude about the people who you determined to be junkies. Lose the chip on your shoulder.
excellent point "anon", I'll
excellent point "anon", I'll be sure to learn from your posts moving forward.
Meanwhile,
That was a good one, Adam! (Re: the 25% price reduction if not sold in the first 12 days).
Does that mean if not sold in 30 days, it is donated to charity?