Commentaries Real Estate

Downtown View: Competition Might Improve Old Rental Buildings

Downtown residents are enjoying a certain satisfaction they didn’t expect. Those dreadful absentee landlords who suck all the rent money out of their buildings while keeping them in slum-like condition are now facing competition from such new luxury buildings as the Kensington in the Theatre District, the Avalon near North Station and the Watermark in Read More…

Commentaries

Downtown View: Being Left Out

Are you working hard? Paying attention? Being involved? Some people apparently believe you aren’t. You are not worthy of their attention. They are leaving you out. The Boston Water and Sewer Commission is one of the perpetrators. Its recent flyer listed the sites in each neighborhood to which Boston residents could go to meet a Read More…

Commentaries Transportation

Downtown View: Boston’s Future Mobility

The city published its Go Boston 2030 report in mid-March. It is 223 pages long. I read it so you don’t have to. It’s taken me awhile. It is available electronically at http://goboston2030.org/en/. Suggestions are accompanied by a note explaining how other cities have fared with such changes, a nice touch. After I read the Read More…

Commentaries Transportation

Downtown View: Where Things Stand – Allston Interchange

If you live in downtown Boston, you probably know this place from your car only. This is where either you paid your first toll on the Mass Pike after you sailed past BU, or where you got on the pike via a long, winding ramp after driving out from downtown on Storrow Drive. Either way, Read More…

Commentaries

Downtown View: Where Things Stand – Winthrop Square

The proposed 775-foot tower to be built on the site of a grungy city garage started out nicely when plans were unveiled last summer. The developer, Millennium Partners, was largely responsible for revitalization of Washington Street with the Ritz complex, Millennium Place and the Millennium Tower that filled in Vornado’s Filene’s hole. They would pay Read More…