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Why Boston can’t build ultra-luxury condos fast enough

The view from a condo in 22 Liberty at Fan Pier, which sold out months before it opened. Another luxury tower is already underway next door at 50 Liberty. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

By Scott Van Voorhis

February 22, 2016

2 minutes to read

If Boston looks like it has too many luxury condos, think again.

The city faces a dearth of available multimillion-dollar condos, even as the new super-deluxe 60-story Millennium and 61-story Four Seasons towers take shape on the skyline.

Rich and wealthy buyers hailing from everywhere from tony Boston suburbs to China are snapping up condos in such uber-luxury addresses as fast as they can get built, notes Kevin Ahearn, president and owner of Otis & Ahearn, a downtown Boston luxury condo marketing and research firm.

And while a number of new condo high-rises are gearing up to break ground or open over the next few years, the hundreds of new units they will bring to the market are likely to get snapped up just as fast.

“It’s off to a good start,” Ahearn said of Boston’s luxury condo market during the first two month of 2016. He called 2015 a “record year” for sales.

The luxury landscape

While the new Millennium Tower won’t open until this summer, most of the skyscraper’s 422 condos are already reserved by buyers, with the recent announcement of the sale of the tower-topping penthouse, which had been on the market for $37.5 million, the icing on the cake.

The new Four Seasons tower (One Dalton) has opened sales office, with its 180 “ultra high-end” condos, some of which have the potential to break the $20 million mark, expected to go fast as well. Brokers representing the developer have already been quietly marketing the uber-luxury condos to “family and friends.”

On the Seaport/Innovation District waterfront, a trio of new super luxury condos high-rises is getting teed up.

After selling out 22 Liberty, a 120-unit condo tower at Fan Pier, longtime waterfront developer Joe Fallon has begun work on his next project, 50 Liberty.

Next door at Pier 4, New York developer Tishman Speyer is hoping to break ground soon on a curved, glass 9-story super luxury condo building with 100 units.

Also on the waterfront, developer Joe Cronin has kicked off the city review process for a 22-story luxury condo tower where the Whiskey Priest and Atlantic Beer Garden now stand. The tower is designed to look like billowing sails.

Over in the Fenway, work is well underway on the Pierce, a 30-story tower with a mix of condos and apartments, while in the Back Bay, plans for a new condo tower that would soar over the Copley Place Mall and Copley Square have been in the works for years.

Modest?

Still, all these projects will add a little over 680 new units, a relatively modest number given the steady and strong demand for uber luxury units, Ahearn notes.

There were just 44 condos available for sale in the city’s top 18 condo buildings as of the middle of February, Ahearn said.

“It is a very limited pipeline and it’s all uber luxury,” Ahearn said of the new condos being built. “That is not an overabundance of units. We could use every bit of it.”