Boston Has High Hopes Now That the Dig Is Done

But with the $15 billion construction project known as the Big Dig officially over as of last month, the promised transformation of downtown Boston — not just its traffic patterns but also its look, its feel, its very essence — finally seems within reach.

Expectations are high, and for good reason. The Big Dig drained not only public coffers but also the psyche of Boston as it replaced the traffic-choked highway with sleek tunnels over nearly two decades. The construction forced hellish traffic jams and proved faulty, with the new tunnels springing hundreds of leaks and worse. Four workers died during the construction, and in 2006, concrete ceiling panels in one tunnel collapsed and killed a woman in a car.

Boston industrial facility on the block for $19M

The 103,171 square foot cold storage facility is located at 1 Commercial St. in Sharon, an affluent Boston suburb. Situated on 9.97 acres, it is fully occupied by Preferred Freezer, the fifth largest Public Refrigerated Warehouse company in the country. The building is being offered for $185 per square foot or $24 per cubic foot.

Regenstreif is a retail associate at Marcus & Millichap and specializes in the brokerage of single-tenant properties. In October 2007, he finalized the $66.5 million sale of the Mervyn's office building in the Oakland suburb of Hayward, Calif.

Wary tenants drive office rents down

“Clearly, the demand has slowed, but there’s still demand for space out there,” said David Begelfer, president of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties of Massachusetts.

But until recently, the market for Class A office space was sizzling in Boston, with some rent requests spilling over the $90 per-square-foot mark.

Now, rents have come back to earth, stabilizing in the past month in the $70-$85 range, as economic news has grown more grim nationwide and as some larger companies worry where the economy is going.

A working class crisis

Of the 25 cities with the highest concentrations of "creative class" workers, only one also ranks among the Top 25 in foreclosure rate. Richard Florida included very small cities on his list; RealtyTrac only looks at the 100 largest cities. So this is a modified list of his highest-ranked large cities (and in parenthesis, their rank on the RealtyTrac list):

1. Washington (41)
2. Raleigh-Durham (53)
3. Boston (69)

Trains and the future shape of our communities

What will the world look like, after the return to rails? Autos and airliners distribute population, writes Stilgoe; railroads concentrate it.

"Assume the train as a given, and suddenly many small satellite cities, often with very low real-estate values, become attractive to real-estate investors." Old roadbeds will be upgraded, rights of way previously converted to nature trails will be reclaimed and converted to high-speed passenger service.

New focus for Melcher Street project

Earlier, Archon/Goldman, which includes Archon Group LP and Goldman Properties Inc., sold what had been planned as its first major neighborhood improvement - a pair of Summer Street buildings slated to be luxury condos. Those former warehouses at 316-322 Summer St. will now be renovated for office use.

"The street-level retail is a key component to this project and a continuation of what's going on in all of the Boston Wharf area," John M. Matteson, regional director of Archon Group LP, said of the Melcher Street plans.

Boston real estate nirvana

Lincoln saw home sale prices increase by more than 10 percent, hitting an average of $1,096,000. Weston prices edged up slightly over $1.2 million, while total sales increased by more than 40 percent, totaling 196. Brookline prices rose roughly 5 percent to $1,050,000. Sudbury, Wayland, Andover and Newton also saw modest price increases, and, in some cases, the sales volume rose as well.

BU students report real estate agents' illegal entry

Boston University College of Communication junior Lucia Jazayeri said a real estate agent once tried to show her apartment after 9 p.m., let himself in without knocking, but then realized he was in the wrong apartment.

Jazayeri said real estate agents have come unannounced to her apartment on two other occasions and only one agent has emailed her beforehand.