Real Estate Observer
The much anticipated Clarendon Back Bay condo development appears to have started its upward rise over the past several weeks as the below exclusive pictures and video demonstrate.
The top three photos were taken on February 16th, while the bottom two were taking on March 9th – you can see the start of a structure in the former, and the actual structure beginning in the latter. For exclusive Buyer Agency representation on the advance reservation of a unit at the Clarendon, please contact us.
At approximately 7:40am this morning, a four alarm fire broke out at the under construction ultra luxury Mandarin Oriental. Details have been trickling in throughout the day. The fourth floor of the 14-story structure on Boylston Street underwent approximately $2 million in damages. Cause of the fire remains under investigation, however, it is stated that it does not look “suspicious”.
March 11, 2008: As more details, and quotes, became available, the Boston Globe published an additional article on the extent of the fire damage, indicating the fire may cause a modest delay to the Mandarin’s opening, originally scheduled for July 2008.
The Bryant on Columbus, locate don the north side of Columbus Avenue between Dartmouth and Clarendon, continues to scream through construction of floors. They’re now on floor 6, and appear to be adding a new level each week. We’ve updated the exclusive time series photos of development at our Bryant on Columbus featured development page.
Despite the expeditious pace at which floors are being added, it’s unclear at this point whether the currently anticipated August 2008 opening will be met. Regardless, the Bryant on Columbus will be an excellent addition to the neighborhood, with some of the only three-bedroom floor-through elevator served units in the area. Below are some additional shots from the construction site.
You have perhaps heard about, or seen, several of the various technologies that listing agents use in order to disseminate information about their listing at the street level. Meaning, on the actual for sale sign will be either a phone number that you can call and get a real-time verbal tour of the home, or perhaps it’s a radio station that you tune your car radio to in order to hear more facts about the home. XAP Realty is taking things to the next level with a new technology based on the use of mobile phone text messaging capabilities.
Text messaging is becoming both a noun and a verb (similar to that of Google), and XAP Realty of Los Angeles, CA has launched a new patent pending mobile phone technology that offers both Buyers and Realtors a unique and innovative way to gather and disseminate information, respectively. Simply put, a Buyer sends a text message to a number on a for sale sign, and they will receive detailed listing information back on their phone instantly.
We sat down with XAP’s Vice President of Sales to hear a little bit more about their new offering.
Boston Condo Blog: What distinguishes your service from virtual tours that you call into at a particular phone number, or tune your car radio to?
XAP Realty: There are two major factors that separate us from other virtual tours.
Boston Condo Blog: Will you be expanding into the Boston market?
XAP Realty: Yes, we do plan on expanding to Boston in the near future. We actually have staff that are Boston University alumni.
The Ashmont MBTA station and surrounding area is home to significant development and redevelopment these days, included in this is the mixed-use, for-sale and rental development at the Carruth, which overlooks the transit hub.
The Carruth, a Trinity Financial development, now has a model home open, and have priced their 1 through 2+ bedroom units from $269,000 to $429,000 (including parking). We received a tour of the construction site in late 2007 (see The Carruth Condo Development), and it’s great to see a transit oriented development, just south of the city, take shape.
A grand opening house party will be held Saturday and Sunday, March 8th and 9th, from 12 – 4PM each day. This will serve as our Featured Open House of the week. Please let Larry, and the whole team at the Carruth, know that you heard about the open house here on the Boston Condo Blog. Food and drinks (coffee) will be served at the event in conjunction with two of the commercial inhabitants of the building, Tavolo, and Flat Black Coffee.
The residences at 20 Beacon Street, otherwise known as the Claflin Building, saw further prices changes after last week’s $500,000 reduction (see $500K Price Reduction on Claflin Penthouse), which coincidentally, turned into a $600K reduction.
The remaining units at the Claflin all received price reductions, from $100K to $200K. Price per square foot in units now run between $820 to $1,089.
For more information, or to setup a showing, please contact us using the link at the top of this page.
The Boston Globe recently reported that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board has secured a $270 million guarantee from the developers of the Columbus Center project that they will see the expensive four-block deck over the highway to completion.
The guarantee clears another hurdle for the project, which has been 11 years in planning and development, encountered monumental opposition, and finally went into construction only late last year.
Columbus Center is a significant mixed-use six-building development that will be built on top of a deck that stretches over open traffic lanes on the Massachusetts Turnpike from Clarendon to Tremont Streets in Boston’s South End.
An interesting point that the article in the Globe mentions is that the deck will be owned by the Turnpike. The Turnpike Authority amended its air-rights lease with the developers, Winn Development and MacFarlane Urban Realty Co., to clarify the ownership and purpose of the deck on which the mixed-use project is being built on the edge of the Back Bay.
That clarification – stating the deck will be owned by the Turnpike, leased to the developers, and created in part to benefit the public – was necessary for the developers to use $10 million in jobs-creation grants from the state.
Crews have been onsite in the South End for some time now, working nearby other developments, including 285 Columbus Lofts and the Clarendon Back Bay.
We received a request to provide an update on the Penmark South End condo development in Boston’s South End. Located on Father Gilday Street, parallel and south of Washington Street, the Penmark is a 60-unit well appointed development that has been laboring to close out the final developer units from the 2005 redevelopment of the building. We blogged about what were the 11 units for sale back in mid November (see Penmark South End Condo Prices), and now there are 7 remaining units on the Boston MLS.
Various floor plans are still available in the $566 to $740 per square foot (+/-) range. Available units are listed from $565,000 to $1,055,000, and do include garage parking.
For more details on available units: Penmark South End Condo Listings (2.7 MB PDF)
A quick update on the Charlestown Harborview at the Navy Yard condominium development. As we reported in 2007, the condo development went from for sale condos to being announced as a rental development, then came the spin that the entire development (building, land, etc.) would be sold via auction, then the lawsuits began, and now we’ve seen two delays in the actual auction.
The auction that was scheduled for November 8, 2007 was postponed until February 1, 2008, and was rescheduled for March 1, 2008, however, according to Pesco (who is handling the sale), the sale did not go forward on this date.
We receive a stream of requests every day regarding Harborview, anywhere from how much rent will be, to when can I buy a condo. At this point, everything is at a stand still. It’s obviously a mystery as to why the current owner is “sitting on” an essentially completed property that could be recouping investment. Stay tuned for more information.
We’ve run several stories on the famed Beacon Hill Claflin Building (for the most recent, see Featured Open House at 20 Beacon (Claflin) and Beacon Hill Claflin Building Gets New Prices), and the multi-million dollar penthouse unit, on the market now for a total of 540 days according to the Boston MLS has just underwent a price reduction of $500,000, taking it from $4.6 million down to $4.1 million. At press time, prices on the other 3 units in the development remained unchanged.
A three-bedroom, three-bathroom trophy residence, the Claflin’s 3,672 square foot penthouse (priced at $1,116 per square foot) at 20 Beacon Street is worth your consideration if you are in the market for a very high-end luxury downtown home – a stone’s throw from the new City Hall and Boston Common, a Beacon Hill masterpiece revitalized for the 21st century.
Keith Munsell
CPM & Master Lecturer
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Mark Strickland
Realtor & ABR
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Dean Charles
Real Estate Thought Leader
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Bobby Quinn
EcoBroker Certified
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Mark Martin
Broker & President 2mrealty
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