Suffolk Downs may become a huge new neighborhood (Stoughton, Milton: buyers, luxury)

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by timberline742

This is true everywhere. If it is new construction, it is marketed as "luxury". Why not?

Except it's not true everywhere. I'm in Denver a ton. New construction apartment buildings with the big glass, high ceilings, and balcony with a W/D in the apartment just have a big vinyl "New Apartments for Rent" banner hanging on them. The 'burbs in Williamson County south of Nashville are the same way. Ditto the north Atlanta 'burbs. Any of the explosive growth places are like that. It's what people expect to rent. You don't see "luxury" marketed anywhere unless it has the luxury amenities like garage parking, clubhouse, exercise room, pool...

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Except it's not true everywhere. I'm in Denver a ton. New construction apartment buildings with the big glass, high ceilings, and balcony with a W/D in the apartment just have a big vinyl "New Apartments for Rent" banner hanging on them. The 'burbs in Williamson County south of Nashville are the same way. Ditto the north Atlanta 'burbs. Any of the explosive growth places are like that. It's what people expect to rent. You don't see "luxury" marketed anywhere unless it has the luxury amenities like garage parking, clubhouse, exercise room, pool...

Ok, fair enough. When I'm in Milwaukee, Chicago, Portland, Oakland, Madison, DC, and many more (those are just some places from the last year I spent time in), the the places I've been I see every banner on any newish or re-fab building says luxury.


Perhaps its newer places where the housing is younger/newer that doesn't do that, and the older more established places where a hundred year old building is commonplace markets new construction as luxury. It's hardly a Boston area or even New England area phenomenon though.

[The_General]

Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade

Don’t go forward with anything until there’s financing in place to make these non luxury units and 20% of them are income based. This is an oppurtunity to actually our a slight dent in rising rents. This is not even a desirable site for luxury condos. It it will be floated out there anyway.

OK you can let us know when Hell freezes over while the site remains and empty track

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by The_General

OK you can let us know when Hell freezes over while the site remains and empty track

It's actually not that crazy of an ask. They're already required to have 13% affordable (which is the city mandate) and an additional 10% set aside for seniors. At a minimum, nearly 1/4 (23%) of this development will be affordable/set-aside for non-luxury renters/buyers. And that's if the developer won't concede more (and there are are almost always concessions on projects like this).

To an earlier point in this thread, 10,000 housing units is a LOT. For perspective, the entire town of Stoughton has 10,295 households and 26,000 people. Neighboring Winthrop has 7,800 households and 18,000 people. Even if we assume the majority of buyers here are not families with Children, you're looking in the ballpark of potentially 20,000 people moving into a small area in a short amount of time. It's not possible for them all, or even the majority, to be "luxury" residents.

I think the initial affordable percentage and set aside is just about on target. That's 1,300 affordable units and 1,000 more for seniors. Maybe a small increase is possible, but if you start pushing it up too high, it'll also push up sale prices and rents on the "market rate" units in the development because money has to be made somewhere.

[BostonBornMassMade]

Originally Posted by lrfox

It's actually not that crazy of an ask. They're already required to have 13% affordable (which is the city mandate) and an additional 10% set aside for seniors. At a minimum, nearly 1/4 (23%) of this development will be affordable/set-aside for non-luxury renters/buyers. And that's if the developer won't concede more (and there are are almost always concessions on projects like this).

To an earlier point in this thread, 10,000 housing units is a LOT. For perspective, the entire town of Stoughton has 10,295 households and 26,000 people. Neighboring Winthrop has 7,800 households and 18,000 people. Even if we assume the majority of buyers here are not families with Children, you're looking in the ballpark of potentially 20,000 people moving into a small area in a short amount of time. It's not possible for them all, or even the majority, to be "luxury" residents.

I think the initial affordable percentage and set aside is just about on target. That's 1,300 affordable units and 1,000 more for seniors. Maybe a small increase is possible, but if you start pushing it up too high, it'll also push up sale prices and rents on the "market rate" units in the development because money has to be made somewhere.

Generally 21% of all housing in Boston is affordable despite he 13% requirement because in the 80s 90s and 00s had much higher percentages of affordable housing being built because getting federal money to improve areas was easier as more of the city was distressed and the market demand wasn’t nearly as high-about 40% of all units built in the 90s were “affordable housing” of some sort. But I am not sure if that includes public housing though. So a 20% set aside is a moderate ask. It’s so many units it’s not that hard to do at that scale. Especially if there’s a lot of city and state assistance in the project.

[rranger]

Originally Posted by redplum33

Potentially 10,000 new homes.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business...knL/story.html

Yikes! It's already a nightmare virtually any time of the day getting to Assembly Square. This, combined with the ridiculous new casino, is a gridlock nightmare waiting to happen. I guess I can kiss my visits to Earl's goodbye

[tysmith95]

Originally Posted by rranger

Yikes! It's already a nightmare virtually any time of the day getting to Assembly Square. This, combined with the ridiculous new casino, is a gridlock nightmare waiting to happen. I guess I can kiss my visits to Earl's goodbye

What? This is Suffolk Downs not Assembly. Suffolk Downs won't really affect traffic in Somerville.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by tysmith95

What? This is Suffolk Downs not Assembly. Suffolk Downs won't really affect traffic in Somerville.

Agreed.

I am 100% in support of this project and all that comes with it. When people complain about how awful a new high-rise or condo project in town is going to make traffic, I generally roll my eyes. It's usually a red herring.

But in this case, given the scale of the project and the already congested nature of the area, something needs to be done. I believe there's language in the proposal that indicates they want to widen 1a. That'll be a wonderful case study in induced demand. The Blue Line is not at capacity. With a relatively new fleet and track upgrades, the Blue Line could run more frequently right now and accommodate many more riders. This will help with traffic and at least give people options. But there's no question that this project will make traffic in the area worse. Hopefully they're able to engineer it in a way to minimize the impact. A flyover style at the entrance to 1A (will be located where Tomasello Way currently is), maybe a redesigned roundabout/rotary where Tomasello Way, North Shore Road, and Winthrop Ave. meet, and you should be OK. But you're still going to deal with backups no matter what.

[tysmith95]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Agreed.

I am 100% in support of this project and all that comes with it. When people complain about how awful a new high-rise or condo project in town is going to make traffic, I generally roll my eyes. It's usually a red herring.

But in this case, given the scale of the project and the already congested nature of the area, something needs to be done. I believe there's language in the proposal that indicates they want to widen 1a. That'll be a wonderful case study in induced demand. The Blue Line is not at capacity. With a relatively new fleet and track upgrades, the Blue Line could run more frequently right now and accommodate many more riders. This will help with traffic and at least give people options. But there's no question that this project will make traffic in the area worse. Hopefully they're able to engineer it in a way to minimize the impact. A flyover style at the entrance to 1A (will be located where Tomasello Way currently is), maybe a redesigned roundabout/rotary where Tomasello Way, North Shore Road, and Winthrop Ave. meet, and you should be OK. But you're still going to deal with backups no matter what.

The real choke point is at the tunnel, and i'm not really sure how to fix that besides increasing the toll and trying to get people onto the Blue Line.

But yah this is a ton of land right on top of an underutilized subway line. What would really help is if they limited parking at this development, to convince people to not own cars and use public transit instead of driving.

[rethcir]

Well, I hope these new units are very well soundproofed, that is directly under the flight path.