NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS: Major complex planned for Back Bay

Developer Steve Samuels has won the right to build a towering $360 million hotel, residential and retail complex at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street, adding to rapid redevelopment of the area, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation on Monday formally selected Samuels and his partner, Weiner Ventures, to build a 400-foot-high complex -- about 32 stories -- that will include a hotel, residences and stores.

The buildings will occupy two air rights parcels over and along the Massachusetts Turnpike in the Back Bay. On one plot known as Parcel 15, Samuels will develop a high-rise hotel and residences, with a separate building to contain stores along Boylston Street

The Samuels team will also build a mid-rise residential building on a nearby parcel of land, as well as another retail complex that will cover the Turnpike along Massachusetts Avenue. Overall, the development will include 230 residences, 270 hotel rooms and 50,000 square feet of retail space.

Samuels, who in recent years has developed much of Boylston Street in the adjacent Fenway neighborhood, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Massachusetts transportation officials have negotiated a tentative lease with Samuels and Weiner Ventures that will give the state more than $18 million in rent and other payments over 99 years, according to the person with knowledge of the deal but who is not authorized to speak publicy about it.

Samuels was selected over several other developers who also bid for the right to to redevelop the property. They included the Chiofaro Co., Trinity Financial and Carpenter & Co., which was recently designated to build a hotel and residential complex on the nearby Christian Science property.

State and city officials have been weighing competing proposals for the property for several

HOME DESIGN: Amazing Unfolding Origami Apartment video - OffBeat Spaces

ARCHITECTURE: A Real Life Digital Architect - Digital Architect Video

VIDEO: A cluttered apartment turned modern oasis - Thank god I hired a designer

Architecture: Small-house philosophy attracts big interest

For a man who thinks small, Ross Chapin is in big demand.

The American architect and author from Whidbey Island, Wash., has been busy fielding calls from around the world, from Japan and Australia to Spain, England and right next door in Canada.

Everyone wants to know more about the small-house philosophy he’s helped to pioneer across the border and what he calls “pocket neighbourhoods,” an old-fashioned community-planning concept repurposed (and newly coined) to fit with modern urban demands.

“Perhaps this is in response to ‘big,’ ” Chapin said of the global interest in small housing in an interview earlier this week in Vancouver, where he delivered a talk on the small-housing trend at the University of B.C.

“I think there are people all around the world who are trying to find approaches that are more sustainable, more humane, more livable. That’s a challenge for all of us in a finite world.”

Livability and sustainability — not to mention affordability — are key words in the Vancouver region right now as cities struggle to balance a need to accommodate an estimated one million more residents over the next 25 years with a desire to preserve green space and limit urban sprawl.

That discussion has encouraged a range of new housing options to spring up in recent years in what had been predominantly single-family home neighbourhoods from the west side of

VIDEO: Life inside a far-out design project

HOME DESIGN: The incredible unfolding home - a film about illy's Push Button House

BOSTON REAL ESTATE NEWS: New development coming soon to Pier 4

Construction will start next month on mixed-use complex that will displace iconic Boston restaurant

Through years of redevelopment around it, Anthony’s Pier 4 has remained largely the same, serving up New England seafood classics in a brick restaurant at the edge of Boston Harbor.

But next month the changes that are rapidly redefining the Seaport District will finally arrive at Anthony’s doorstep.

Construction will begin on a massive complex that will eventually displace Anthony’s from its perch at the edge of the pier, and could mark the last chapter of the venerable restaurant. The project includes construction of three glass-walled buildings with hundreds of new residences, a hotel, and multiple restaurants.

Most important, a 1-acre waterfront park will be built where Anthony’s now stands. And for now the Athanas family, which owns the restaurant, has not settled on a new location — whether in one of the new buildings going up on Pier 4, or elsewhere in the Seaport.

“They’re still weighing their options,” said Douglass Karp, an executive with New England Development, the property’s master developer. “We think the world of those guys, and we’re committed to continuing to work with them.”

Anthony’s owners did not return a phone call Tuesday for comment.

The restaurant will remain open while the first new building at Pier 4 goes up, a 21-story apartment and retail tower along Northern Avenue. But it will have to close its current location when construction starts on the park, which is not likely for several years.

Ironically, the Pier 4 redevelopment will in many ways realize the original vision for the property by the restaurant’s founder, Anthony Athanas.

In the 1980s, when most of the Seaport was largely parking lots and empty industrial land, Athanas pressed to build a mixed-use development that would transform the land between Pier 4 and Fort Point Channel into “the next jewel in Boston’s crown.”

But Athanas lost control of much of the property in a legal battle with his former development partner, the Pritzker family of Chicago, and in the late 1990s hesold the development rights to Pier 4 itself to New England Development. Athanas died in 2005 at the age of 93. His family continues to operate the restaurant.

The plan by New England Development will dramatically change Pier 4, filling its half-empty

BOSTON HOUSING NEWS: Skyline blooms as Boston OK’s over $1.5b in projects

Boston’s skyline is getting busy again.

City regulators this week approved more than $1.5 billion in new construction projects, including a $500 million expansion of New Balance’s headquarters in Brighton, as well as large residential and retail developments in Downtown Crossing, the Fenway, and the South End.

The projects promise to create hundreds of construction jobs while transforming sections of the city in coming years with apartment towers, hotels, stores, and restaurants. The pace of building activity marks an abrupt change from the recent recession, when few substantial developments were built in Boston.

“These are all solid projects, and I believe you’ll see them in the ground soon,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said Friday, adding that together they will add more than 1,200 residences. “What we’re trying to do is build housing to accommodate a new, younger workforce coming to our city,” the mayor said.

The approval of the $620 million Filene’s redevelopment at Downtown Crossing grabbed most of the attention at the Boston Redevelopment Authority board meeting Thursday night. That project includes a 625-foot residential tower, a renovated 1912 Filene’s building, and new offices, shops, and restaurants.

But the New Balance expansion and the projects in the Fenway and South End will also bring substantial additions to those areas:

■ In Brighton, New Balance will redevelop 14 acres of industrial parcels near the Massachusetts Turnpike into a $500 million campus with a sports complex, retail stores, a new commuter rail station, and additional office buildings. The sports complex is slated to include a hockey arena and facilities for track and field, tennis, and basketball.


ADD INC.

Normandy Real Estate Partners will build apartments and a hotel on Albany Street.

■ In the Fenway, developer Abbey Group will build a residential tower with 322 residences and

VIDEO: An office in an alley - tiny, eclectic, amazing spaces

HOME MAINTANENCE: How to Measure Your Home’s Square Footage

One of the most confusing and misleading metrics in the home building and home selling business is area — the “size” of a house.

The problem is that there’s no adopted standard; everyone measures it differently. There has been a move in the past few years to create a universal standard like the one architects use (specified in AIA contracts), but it isn’t mandatory and isn’t yet widely used.

Many state boards of real estate specify a process to measure house area, but it’s a recommendation, not a requirement. So “house area” means different things to different people.

The one thing that is always true is that area is never measured from the inside of the walls; the area of a house always includes all wall thicknesses interior and exterior.

Gross area

Not surprisingly, builders and real estate agents often want to show the largest number they can, so they sometimes measure the entire perimeter of the house on both floors. They may or may not include porches, stairs and two-story spaces. Because you don’t know their basis, it can be very hard to compare one house to another.

A relatively impartial source is your county auditor or assessor. They calculate the size of the house for tax purposes and therefore measure all houses the same way. And although their measurements aren’t always a true reflection of the size of the house, they use the same protocol, so it’s easier to compare one house to another.

But county records show only the gross areas contained within the perimeter of the foundation, which doesn’t accurately reflect the “livable” space within.

Defining separate spaces

A better way is to list areas separately, rather than combining them into one number; that’s the way we calculate areas at our office:

We first measure the perimeter of the house at the exterior wall sheathing — not the siding or brick, just the framing — on both floors.

Next we subtract the upper part of any two-story spaces and deduct the area of stairs on the

VIDEO: Design, How to Create Comfortable Spaces - Profiles in Design video

FOREIGN MONEY IN REAL ESTATE: Qatar prime minister to buy $250M of One57 condos

The prime minister of Qatar has negotiated deals to by about $250 million worth of apartments in Extell Development’s One57 tower, including a nearly $100 million penthouse, the New York Post reported. Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani turned his attention to Gary Barnett’s building after his bid to buy Huguette Clark’s Fifth Avenue penthouse for $31.5 million was rejected by the co-op board.

The 10,923-square-foot penthouse was already reported to be in contract for a nine-figure price north of $90 million, but the buyer’s identity was unknown. Sheik Hamad is also in discussions with purchasing four separate full-floor condominium units in the building, at 157 West 57th Street, which could bring the total purchase price to $250 million.

The Post said he had also been eying Denise Rich’s $65 million co-op, but boards were reluctant to have him as a buyer. The sheik has two wives, 15 children, armed security and a

SELLING YOUR HOME: Porch Perfection: Welcomes Buyers Instantly

When the weather turns warmer, front porches across the country are put to use again. However, not all porches or front entryways are put to "good" use. Sometimes over the cold winter months they've taken a beating and are badly in need of repair. Other times they're used as storage for overflow from the garage, basement, or house and that is not a welcoming sight for buyers.

So, it simply makes sense that after a long winter or a period of non-use, front porches might need some maintenance. This doesn't have to be the kind of work that takes weeks to do nor does it have to be extremely costly.In real estate, we talk about the importance of a few key elements to help sell your home: location, pricing, and curb appeal. These are some of the highest influential factors that buyers consider. The reasons are obvious. Location is vital to most buyers, pricing is critical (especially in today's marketplace), and curb appeal gets buyers off the street and inside to view your home.

Creating and maintaining porch perfection is about the little things that you do. In fact, some simple repairs, replacements, and re-arranging can brighten up and refresh a worn- out porch.

Start by looking at your porch with a critical eye. If you have been storing items on your porch that should have a home elsewhere, move them now. If you have old carpets, beat up or discolored mats, toss them out and replace them. Look at the lighting on your porch. Is it just one tiny bulb? Perhaps an inexpensive lighting system would brighten the porch, creating a more enticing and safer entryway.

Examine the hardware. Are the door handles corroded? Are they hard to turn to open the door? Think of it this way, if the door hardware looks worn and the doors are banged up, the impression is that this home is not well maintained on the outside and the inside. Some buyers won't go any further. If the home looks messy from the outside, all they will see is the front of your door. See your home the way you would if you were seeing it for the first time, just as the buyers are.

Add some appealing decor. There are a couple of rules that apply when it comes to staging an

NEW CONSTRUCTION: Home Builder Confidence Reaches Highest Level in Four Years

Home builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes rose to its highest level in more than four years in February, according to a new survey released on Wednesday.

AP

Confidence on the National Association of Home Builder's monthly sentiment index jumped 4 points to 29. Fifty, however, is still the line between positive and negative sentiment.

“This is the longest period of sustained improvement we have seen in the HMI since 2007, which is encouraging,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “However, it is important to remember that the HMI is still very low, and several factors continue to constrain the market. Foreclosures are still competing with new home sales, and many builders are seeing appraisals come in at less than the cost of construction. 

Additionally, prospective home buyers are finding it difficult to qualify for a mortgage.”

Each of the index’s three components improved for a fifth consecutive month in February. The component measuring traffic of prospective buyers rose to 22 from 21 while the component measuring sales expectations for the next six months increased to 34 from 29. The component measuring current sales increased to 30 from 25.

Although the index showed signs of improvement, NAHB Chairman Barry Rutenberg cautioned that the housing sector remains fragile with differences in housing strength between individual markets.

“Builder confidence has doubled since September as measured by the HMI,” said Rutenberg,

CONDOS: Townhouse's New Light

The central problem of a New York City townhouse is getting light into the interior, as brothers Shepard and Willard Morgan discovered growing up on West Ninth Street in a house that was gloomy despite large front windows.

Enlarge Image

Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

The living area looking out on the back patio.

Now, decades later, the Morgans have gutted the interior of that 19th-century townhouse and excavated down through 14 feet into a long-forgotten streambed. They rebuilt the house around shafts of light using an ultra-modern minimalist design.

The property is for rental with a non-minimalist asking price: $75,000 a month.

The gloom has been replaced by a central column of light created by a five-story open staircase and clear-glass landings that go from the basement to the roof.

The steel staircase wraps around a 65-foot obelisk-like tower of granite, with strips of lights in the corners between stone slab, hiding the elevator in plain sight.

Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

Skylights surround the top of the granite-covered elevator shaft.

"It solves the puzzle of what to do with the elevator," said Timothy Brian Barry, a family friend and one-time sculptor and carpenter, who created the design for the space and is overseeing construction

The Morgans' father, a podiatrist, bought the 22-foot-wide townhouse in the 1940s, and turned the English basement into space for his office and operating room. The family lived upstairs for some years.

Until a few years ago, members of the family still lived upstairs and the brothers maintained a real-estate office in the building, Mr. Barry said.

Willard Morgan also has a another career as an actor, director, comedian, musician and multimedia artist. He is best known for a 2006 comic documentary, "Me & Michael" in which he stalks the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, looking for a break in the movies.

Enlarge Image

Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal

The kitchen

When deciding to fix up the place and clear out a warren of small rooms, the Morgans and Mr. Barry had to decide whether to do a traditional townhouse renovation with fine moldings and finishes.

"We went the other way to the extreme," Mr. Barry said. "It is a charged building—there is energy in the air."

The house has a mix of features designed to

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS: Downtown Crossing Development

The development firm taking control of the former Filene’s property in downtown Boston said it will build a tower as high as 600 feet, rivaling the tallest buildings in the district and creating a new magnet for shoppers, diners, and residents.

At that height, the new Filene’s tower would be as tall as the Federal Reserve Bank building or the nearby One Boston Place. It would be taller and more slender than the first building proposed for the site, a 39-story building that stalled in the early stages of construction.

Principals of the new development firm, Millennium Partners, yesterday said the new tower will cost at least $500 million and include about 1.2 million square feet of residential and commercial space, including a base of retail stores, a substantial office component, and apartments on the upper floors. “What excites us about the [Filene’s site] is the opportunity to do something truly spectacular,’’ Philip Aarons, a founding partner of New York-based Millennium, said at a news conference at Boston City Hall. “It will again become the center of downtown.’’

Mayor Thomas M. Menino expressed confidence the firm will begin construction within a year, ending the work stoppage that has left a giant hole in the middle of Downtown Crossing for more than three years and that slowed a larger plan to revitalize the district.

“Millennium Partners is taking control of this project and will get it done,’’ Menino said.

Millennium is teaming up with the project’s existing owner, Vornado Realty Trust of New York, which will be a passive investor. Aarons declined to identify the amount of the firm’s investment so far, but said it will be the lead partner and present a new plan within several months.

Millennium has built large projects in major cities across the country, including the four-building Lincoln Square complex in New York, the Millennium Tower in San Francisco, and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel & Towers down the street from the Filene’s site in Boston. Anthony Pangaro, who

ARCHITECTURE: Would You Live in a Shed?

Downsizing to a shed may seem like a drastic step to take in a resource and financially-strained climate, but U.K-based FKDA Architects is hoping you'll do just that. According to FKDA, the prefab shed idea came as a response to increasing reports "of people being forced from their homes unable to make their current mortgage payments, and turning to live with family, in garden sheds and even cars." 

FDKA's micro-home, built from FSC-certified wood and insulated with cellulosic fiber derived from recycled newspapers, is hardly a garden shed. The so-called shed comes with a skylight, radiant underfloor heating, energy-efficient appliances, ample storage space, LED lighting, and optional solar photovoltaic and hot water heating systems. From the looks of it, FDKA's shed is just as nice as a standard studio apartment--if not nicer.

The shed comes in two options--the 24-square-meter big shed ($57,554-$82,220) and the 13-square-meter little shed ($32,888-$57,554). With energy costs practically taking care of themselves, the

HOME DESIGN: Designing on a Human Scale

Sarah Susanka's newly-constructed 'not so big house' in Libertyville, Ill., provides smart ideas for comfortable living in fewer square feet.

The house of the future — at least the immediate future — probably won’t look anything like what we saw watching “The Jetsons” as kids. But it may very well look like acclaimed architect and author Sarah Susanka’s “not so big” home that’s making its premiere just outside of Chicago.


Susanka designed the show-home for the new SchoolStreet development in Libertyville, Ill., and it’s the first time she’s created a home that is available in the mass market. In partnership with developer John McLinden, Susanka has created a home that integrates technology of the present with the comforts of the past. It’s based on an architectural concept — smarter construction in a smaller footprint — that Susanka has nurtured at least since the 1998 publication of her book, The Not So Big House: A Blueprint For the Way We Really Live.


The SchoolStreet house isn’t small; it’s more than 2,500 square feet. But as a show house, it offers numerous ideas for adapting existing space.


“People are looking not just for a smaller house, but for a better house,” says Susanka. “You can make less square footage feel like more if it’s well designed.”


According to a recent study by the National Association of Home Builders, by 2015 homes are expected to average 2,152 square feet, which is 10.5 percent smaller than the average single-family home built during 2010 (that, in turn, is down from the peak of 2,520 square feet in 2007 and 2008). Susanka’s home embodies the trend toward living well on a smaller scale by incorporating an open floor plan with ceiling accents that define the space, several multipurpose rooms, energy-efficient features, and outdoor entertainment areas. Smart organizational built-ins blend seamlessly, such as a cabinet just the right size for extra toilet paper in the home’s bathrooms and a murphy bed in a first-floor room.

“SchoolStreet houses are designed to align with a cultural shift in how home owners truly want to live — more soulful designs, filled with detail, that are sensitive to the environment and connected to a pedestrian-friendly, vital community,” McLinden said. “For decades, Sarah has been espousing the benefit of such houses. Few people have had as great an influence on the American home and lifestyle as Sarah.”


The SchoolStreet project serves as a beacon of success in today’s housing market and new-home construction. The location was previously home to a luxury townhome development that went into foreclosure. When McLinden purchased the property, he went back to the drawing board to create smaller, high-quality, cutting-edge bungalows, and slashed the prices in half, with homes now starting at $500,000. He also converted Libertyville’s neighboring historic Central School building into 15 loft condominiums. As of early December, 21 of the 26 homes and 5 of the 15 lofts had been purchased.


“I’ve been a REALTOR® since 1978, and in all those years I’ve seen many different

REMODELING: Remodeling Activity Reaches Record High

Many of today’s homeowners find themselves unable or unwilling to enter the housing market. Some may have unsteady jobs or are upside down in their home loans.


These conditions, however, don’t mean that these homeowners don’t have needs that need met. Some have outgrown their current home, have repairs that need made, or simply would love to have an updated kitchen or bath.


This explains the recent report from BuildFax that shows remodeling activity reached a record level high for the month of September.


Partly to thank for this rise in projects are the historically low interest rates, now under 4.0 percent for 30-year fixed rate mortgages. Many homeowners have sought out refinancing, meaning they now have lower monthly payments. This extra money can then be funneled into remodeling projects.

So, while it may not make sense for a homeowner to move, they can still make modifications to their current home which will make it more livable and comfortable. These projects even raise the home’s value. "Mortgage rates continue to be near record lows, and as homeowners from coast to coast refinance, they are continuing to update their current home and invest in their properties," said Joe Emison, Vice President of Research and Development at BuildFax. "The data from BuildFax show that homeowners are not only doing important 'maintenance' projects, such as fixing their roof, but also taking on projects that add to the ‘livability’ of their homes by adding decks, remodeling their bathrooms and updating their kitchens. These are immediate fixes they will enjoy and that potential buyers look for."


The most popular projects come as no surprise. They are as follows.


Roof (21.4%)
Deck (7.9%)