Could North Station Be the Next Back Bay?
Could neighborhoods like Downtown Crossing and North Station become the next Back Bay or Beacon Hill?
The grittiest sections of downtown Boston are suddenly sporting some of the highest prices and rents ever seen in the city.
Millennium Partners has slapped a stunning $37.5 million price-tag for the penthouse that will top its 60-story tower under construction on Washington Street. No matter that it is in the heart of Downtown Crossing, the struggling urban shopping district in the midst of a major overhaul.
AvalonBay Communities is betting it can rent out penthouses at its newest tower for $7,500 a month and up, even though it is next door to the bustling, but exactly scenic, TD Garden/North Station sports and rail hub. Studios start at $2,400.
“This isn’t New York,’’ said Coldwell Banker’s Rich Hornblower, who sells condos across downtown Boston and beyond. “I don’t know if they are going to get that.’’
Still, where some see vacant storefronts and rowdy, game-night bars, developers of the city’s newest residential towers looking ahead to a maybe-not-so-distant future where Downtown Crossing and North Station will rival the Back Bay or even Beacon Hill as hot places to live.
Certainly, both neighborhoods have seen their share of hard-times. Once Boston’s top shopping district, Downtown Crossing was stuck with a huge hole in the ground for years after the Great Recession hit, with the previous developer of the tower complex Millennium is now building having run out of money after tearing up the site.
The only added to the area’s depressed look, with long-time retailers and shops leaving behind empty storefronts.
But Millennium is betting its $680 million tower, which is taking shape next door to a gracefully restored Filene’s building, will transform the once down-and-out section of downtown Boston.
In fact, changes are already underway. Havas Media has set up shop in the historic Burnham Building, where Filene’s once did business, while a Roche Brothers supermarket set to open this spring.
And buyers seem to be biting. Millennium has already signed agreements to sell 150 of the tower’s planned 442 units by the time the sales office first opened last month. The $37.5 million penthouse, at 13,000 square feet, has enough space to fill a suburban mansion.
“A new class of ultra luxury is upon us,’’ said Kevin Ahearn, president of Otis & Ahearn, a downtown Boston condo marketing and research firm. “With that, you will have new pricing.’’
Over at North Station, Scott Dale, senior vice president of development at AvalonBay, recognizes that the North Station area is a work in progress. And while the penthouse prices may seem high, they are even higher still – $10,000 and up – at the developer’s new Back Bay tower.
The penthouse units at the North Station tower will range in size from 1,300-to-1,800 square feet and will feature “condo-like finishes,’’ including quartz countertops, high ceilings, huge windows and hardwood floors, he said.
The penthouses, clustered on the 35th-38th floors, will also be higher up than any other new rental tower in Boston, with competing apartment towers typically below 30 stories.
As for the North Station neighborhood, Dale predicts that new restaurants and shops will follow the new AvalonBay tower and other new development taking shape in the neighborhood.
“We recognize it’s not Back Bay,’’ Dale conceded. But he added: “We may ultimately get there.’’
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