The Revitalist

If your New Year's Resolutions include finally organizing the junk drawer/closet/desk/etc. that is your secret shame, then the NY Times would like to introduce you to the anti-anti-clutter activists. "It's a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands."

The NY Times has an interesting article on the development activity in the Fort Point. The neighborhood has attracted the attention of Tony Goldman of Goldman Properties, "one of the inventors of SoHo." He has acquired 17 buildings in the district in partnership with the Archon Group and plans to rebrand the neighborhood as the Boston Wharf District. To that end, he has restored the historic Boston Wharf Co. sign. The article nicely points out that, Goldman is not the first kid of the block in the Fort Point. Boston-based Berkeley Investments has already acquired 13 buildings and embarked on a similar development strategy (developer-supported boutique and destination retail/restaurants that will create neighborhood cache and support higher rents). And of course, there were the original pioneers of the neighborhood, the Fort Point artist community, who has bought several buildings and developed the Midway Studios. As a board member of the Fort Point Cultural Coalition said, "We do take exception to some of the comments that a white knight developer is going to ride into the wasteland and turn it into a new neighborhood, because it already is a neighborhood."

It is obvious that the district has enormous potential, let's hope that it survives the battle of the developers' egos. Making the Fort Point into a vibrant neighborhood is going to require a certain amount of investment, but it's not hard to imagine. Linking that neighborhood to downtown and the waterfront (on the other side of the Convention Center island) is going to be much trickier... 

The concept of The Long Tail has been kicking around for a while now, and recently CoolTown Studios made the connection to real estate. The idea is that the sum of all the niche market activity is now gaining in power and influence over the traditional conventional market (compare iTunes/MySpace with Tower Records). Virginia Postrell talked about the growing phenomenon of mass customization (the wide availability of personalized choice) in her book The Substance of Style. CoolTown is suggesting that as customers become acclimated to the market's ability to cater to their niche interests, the long tail will trickle down to housing. We are getting similar feedback from our market research. People don't want to live in a vanilla box or one of three styles available in the subdivision. They want a home that reflects their unique style and personality, and they expect that it will be available in the marketplace. We are dipping our toes into this idea by offering lots of different unit layouts and some customization options to prospective renters at WM Lofts. Hopefully, it will be a success, and we'll be able to take it further in the future.

Interview with The Long Tail author, Chris Anderson, on WBUR's On Point.

Everyone is talking about Empty Nesters and retiring Baby Boomers being the next wave of urbanites. It's no longer just YUPpies and DINKs. The NY Times has caught on to the trend and noticed that it's not just lux condos that are attracting the new demographic, but also townhouses in Queens. This is something that our market analysts have been telling us – there is a growing demand for urban housing for middle income empty nest couples – and we need to get these units in the pipeline now. We're working on it!

On a similar note, The Creativity Exchange (Richard Florida's group's blog) has an interview with Robert Toll of Toll Brothers, perennially known as the nation's largest luxury home builder. Toll Brothers is branching out, beyond the suburban McMansions that made their name, into the urban condo market. Mr. Toll paints a pretty retched picture of growing up in those giant suburban houses and a pretty rosy one of life in the thriving metropolis...

We were delighted to see the Powerhouse PowerPod, a Lawrence, MA company's very cool, green, modular housing, was featured on Business Week's Green Christmas List. The top ten list of new green/tech gifts includes these modular, eco-friendly structures with a wide variety of uses. Powerhouse suggests that you use your PowerPod as a guest house,  vacation home, camp in the woods, studio, workshop, or even a house boat. The structures are built with an impressive list of green features: recycled, low-VOC, renewable, low-E, solar, energy star, high efficiency, etc. And the company's modular approach to building includes re-thinking the entire design and construction process to take advantage of modern systems and fit their sustainable goals. Powerhouse is a really cool, cutting edge company, and they are located right in the heart of Lawrence's North Canal District (right down the street from WM Lofts). It's great to have such forward thinking neighbors.

The Revitalist wishes you and yours a very happy holiday!

Washington Mill Lofts – Opening Summer 2007

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on one Milwaukee suburb that has made workforce housing a priority and is very successful (via Planetizen). The city of Hartford, WI has 13,000 people, 8,000+ jobs, and zero unemployment. The City Administrator says, "We're a small, self-contained, inclusionary community ... that provides cradle-to-grave housing, all in everyone's price range. In Hartford, you can still find a new home/lot package under $200,000... We have condos and apartments, and when it comes time that you don't work anymore, we have senior housing. We also have a hospital, a hospice, and when that's done, two cemeteries." That kind of practical, no-nonsense thinking has resulted in a system that encourages a wide range of housing choices without significant city regulation. The city does not have extensive architectural standards or complex zoning regulations. They have decided on a few clear rules and are willing to let the marketplace work it out. Primarily, the City requires that all new developments offer a range of home sizes and prices. Developers are happy with the efficient approvals process and the predictability of their costs. Home buyers are happy with the sense of community and the affordable prices. Business owners are happy with the stability of their workforce and consistency of the city's support.

Sounds like every mid-size city with an eye towards responsible growth should be asking, "How do you do it and how can we?"

An elderly couple's request to alter their front porch and install a wheelchair ramp has led to a preservation dust-up. Their home is in the Mt. Pleasant Historic District, and their request to the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board was denied. A Post columnist has taken up the couples' cause (which has the saccharin tone of a Bart's People segment). The column has been picked up by several DC blogs.

Complaints about the aesthetics police on In Shaw. 

Defense of the relevance of preservation at Urban Places and Spaces. Including an update that provides justifying details about the requested ramp. 

Civic outrage at the Mount Pleasant DC Forum. 

This is one of those cases where the whole story is going to be hard to know unless you're involved in the process. The heart string-plucking story is designed to make you feel sorry for the couple and to shake your fist at government insensitivity. But if the details presented in the Urban Places update about the ramp are accurate, then you can see why the decision was what it was. Despite the veiled implications, it doesn't appear that an elderly couple is being forced out on the street.

Mayor Menino has been awfully busy lately. The City has asked the Boston Redevelopment Authority to adopt new rules into the zoning code that require that all projects, publicly funded or not, of 50,000 sf or more to meet minimum green standards. The standards are based on the Federal LEED program, but the rules will not require LEED certification (you can almost here the collective sighs of relief). In fact, the proposed rules add additional points to the ones already in the LEED rating system. Sounds like the proposal is meeting with mixed reviews. Greener buildings are generally acknowledged as good things, but developers are understandably concerned about the additional up-front costs.

It seems like most developers are already doing a cost-benefit analysis of green features on their buildings and adding all the green that they feel they can afford or recoup costs on. It will be interesting to see what the net effect of this mandated program will be. Will the new rules result in significantly greener buildings that would have otherwise been built? Will the additional time for City certification and incremental costs of achieving the mandated minimums be offset? Will the program become yet another regulatory hurdle that keeps some developers from entering the Boston market? Will developers be forced to scale their 55,000 sf project up into something much bigger in order to get the efficiencies needed to offset the green costs? Fascinating... 

Those of you who know me know that I can't resist a good dog story. Here's one for the season:

This is Max. After sneaking out of his yard and gallivanting around Walpole, he was actually run over by one of the Franklin line commuter rail trains. The train screeched to a halt and the conductor in the photo scooped him up – he was amazingly uninjured – and took him home for the night. After lots of phone calls on both ends, arrangements were made for Max to ride back out to Walpole the next day and return home to his very relieved and grateful owners! The conductor, who describes himself as "a German shepherd kind of guy," says that he and his wife are considering getting a pug.