Banker & Tradesman

MBTA In Negotiations to Acquire Former Beer Warehouse In Medford for A New Electric Bus Garage - Streetsblog Massachusetts Background materials provided to the MBTA board of directors suggest that the garage would replace the agency's existing Fellsway and Lynn bus garages.

SCOOP: @mbta.com In Negotiations to Acquire Former Beer Warehouse In Medford for A New Electric Bus Garage - mass.streetsblog.org/2025/08/13/m...

"Tariffs could also drive up rents by increasing demand. People may opt to rent instead of buy homes because the turmoil around tariffs has fueled widespread economic uncertainty," Redfin economics research lead Chen Zhao said in a statement.

In Tariff War, Mass. Banks Could Lose The Trump administration’s back-and-forth tariff policy is engendering skepticism from local financial institutions at the same time it appears to be scaring consumers and local businesses.

And Massachusetts bank and credit union leaders say they expect the Trump administration’s trade war to cause a slowdown in housing construction by blowing out approved projects’ budgets.

Boston Multifamily Construction Falling Far Faster than U.S. Within the 50 biggest U.S. metros, only 294,000 multifamily units were permitted in 2024, Realtor.com said: a 7.5 percent drop from 2020.

New data from Redfin says the typical rent in in Greater Boston increased 6.9 percent year-over-year, to $2,787 in March.

And multifamily construction in the Boston area was already falling much faster than around the country thanks to extra local costs like high affordable housing requirements.

Tariffs Could Have One Winner in Boston: Landlords Asking rents continued to increase thanks to Greater Boston's highly restricted supply of apartments. But they could go even higher due to President Donald Trump's tariffs and related economic uncerta...

More in our story here 👇

President Donald Trump's tariffs could have one winner in Boston: landlords of existing apartment buildings.

Asking rents were already set to increase thanks to Greater Boston’s highly restricted supply of apartments.

Redevelopment of the 31-acre campus could include up to 20 buildings and 5.7 million square feet of development -- up to 1.7 million square feet of that as housing.

“The proposed project will unlock a site that has been inaccessible to the public for more than 60 years,” the document states.

Gillette Redevelopment Could Include 20 Buildings Redevelopment of the 31-acre Gillette campus in South Boston could include up to 20 buildings and 5.7 million square feet of development.

More details in our story here on the latest information from the company's filings with the Boston Planning Department 👇

This is what could rise on the site of Gillette's soon-to-be-former factory site in South Boston

Boston Signals Flexibility on Affordability Obligations Developers are getting an increasingly sympathetic hearing from Boston officials in an effort to break the logjam of housing projects still sitting on the drawing boards.

There's “an urgency to get more shovels in the ground,” Mayor Michelle Wu says, so the city is offering some developers flexibility to pay into an affordable housing fund, instead of building units on-site.

Will it be enough?

Boston requires that new apartment and condo buildings reserve 17 percent of units for affordable housing and 3 percent more for housing voucher holders cost so much.

Developers say they're so expensive, they can’t afford to build at all when you add in the much higher cost of capital these days.

Is Boston walking back its tough affordability rules?

Developers are getting an increasingly sympathetic hearing from Boston officials in an effort to break the logjam of housing projects still sitting on the drawing boards.

The findings have implications not only for Boston’s largest distressed office property, but a generation of middle-aged office towers that are typically considered too large and impractical to retrofit as housing.

In short, what's the trick? Eat up the center of big floor plates that conventional wisdom says make these towers un-convertable.

Amenity spaces such as fitness rooms, dog spas and resident lounges work well there, the study by several Boston architects, lawyers and project managers says.

Empty Boston Office Towers Have Few Options. Could Housing Be One? A new study says Boston's One Lincoln office tower points to a path forward for dozens of buildings facing financial distress.

A new, multi-firm study says office towers like Boston’s One Lincoln (pictured) could be repurposed from substantially vacant to vibrant with a residential conversion in such a way that rents will outweigh capital costs – and without emptying a building of existing office tenants.

Substantially vacant office towers like Boston's One Lincoln face a daunting future: Sitting around gathering dust for years until the office sector grows again.

What if it didn't have to be that way -- and they could provide a housing fix, too?

‘Water doesn't know property lines’: Where Massachusetts’ climate and housing crises meet “The state rules have to catch up with the reality of climate change," said Matthew Fee, a Nantucket select board member. "A town road can’t be abandoned if someone’s on it, but what happens when the ...

And I've got a long-read today on the intersection between MA coastal communities, seasonal housing, and the dual climate-housing crises.

🚨 O’BRIEN OUT: Developer Tom O’Brien has reversed course and says he is NOT running for mayor of Boston

Watertown Hits Pause on BERDO Ordinance Watertown leaders hit pause on new building emissions regulations after objections from the business community and condominium associations about the potential costs and complications.

Watertown leaders hit pause last week on new building emissions regulations after objections from the business community and condominium associations about the potential costs and complications.

These shifts in consumer sentiment are a housing market variable we haven’t had in 15 years.

It may no longer be just about rates.

Will Lab Slump Translate into Housing Gains? A vision to turn West Cambridge into a second Kendall Square is coming apart amid record lab vacancies across the region, as the fundamentals of development look set to shift back in favor of multifam...

More details in this big shift in the market – which kept more than a few housing projects from getting pitched during COVID – in our story from September here 👇

Boylston Properties Proposes West Cambridge Apartment Tower The plans for a 236-unit apartment complex in West Cambridge illustrates Greater Boston's shifting development economics.

More details on the tower proposal here👇

First reimagined as a mixed industrial-residential neighborhood by Cambridge city planners, major developers fueled by visions of a life science campus to mirror that at the MBTA Red Line station nearby spent heavily to prepare plans.

Now, the pendulum is swinging the other way.

Lender Buys One Lincoln for $400M The buyer helped arrange a billion-dollar financing package for the tower in 2022. The sale shows how far Boston office values have fallen.

🚨Boston's One Lincoln office tower just sold for only $400 million🚨

"Only," because previous owner Fortis Property Group bought the tower in 2006 for a cool $889 million.

Local Bankers Optimistic After Fed Moves Wednesday While the Federal Reserve held fast despite jitters that have gripped the national economy in recent weeks, local bankers are remaining optimistic about the potential for lower interest rates this yea...

Could we, in fact, get lower mortgage rates this year? That would help more developers build housing and help more homebuyers afford homes.

One Lincoln Gets 24-Hour Reprieve Lenders postponed an auction of Boston’s One Lincoln office tower at the last minute, delaying a potential change of ownership for the 1.1 million-square-foot skyscraper.

Lenders postponed an auction of Boston’s One Lincoln office tower at the last minute, delaying a potential change of ownership for the 1.1 million-square-foot skyscraper.

Lexington Slashes MBTA Zoning After Development Boom Officials dramatically reined in Lexington's MBTA Communities zoning districts after significantly more development than first anticipated.

The move, residents and officials said, was to buy time to "plan" for more density, but they also added dimensional regulations that could make it harder to develop lots in the face of the town's high affordable housing requirement.

The size of the district, in pure acreage terms, was also cut roughly in half, by removing parcels including many in its biotech parks, two large ones in a major commercial district and all the lots in its historic but sagging town center.

Town Meeting members voted nearly unanimously to cut the town’s zoning capacity under the law from nearly 13,500 units to just 2,411, including 1,097 in projects already proposed in the last year.