News
$1.6B Quincy Center: It's Go Time
October 18, 2012
| After eight years of planning, construction will start this winter on the $740M first phase of the $1.6B, 3.5M SF project to create a New Quincy Center. Beal/Street-Works, master developer, and the City have collaborated on the design of the first complex, Street-Works partner Lucy Wildrick told us this morning. She expects the City to green light the initial complex within 60 days. | |
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| On Merchants Row, expect a $115M, two-building complex with 306 residential units and 30k SF of ground-floor retail, mostly restaurants. How tricky is it to launch such a big mixed-use project? Plenty, says Street-Works partner Richard Heapes(below). The various uses (office, residential, retail, hotel) have rules for success that are different and can be at odds. To build a sense of place and community, meanwhile, calls for density and structured parking. But that's expensive and when ready to start infrastructure work, the developer may not have the commercial tenants or residents willing or able to pay the extra cost. | |
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| Success often calls for partnerships, like the contribution by the City of Quincy—$300M for infrastructure—and the JV with the Boston-based Beal Companies. Richard says lenders that prefer simplicity may shy away, so it's important to help them visualize a big mixed-use project as a group of single-use developments. Such undertakings most likely will appeal to investors prepared to hold for the long-term, at least 10 years. | |
