1-11 Court St

Where 1-11 Court St is

Its block in Downtown Boston, drawn from Boston's own building outlines and street centerlines.

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

36 ft of exterior wall for each home the screen estimates — enough for two- and three-bedroom homes across the plan.

The typical floor has 555 ft of exterior wall, and across 15 residential floors the building carries 8,391 ft of it in total, divided among the 233 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.69: a squarish plan, with enough perimeter for a conventional double-loaded corridor. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 15.5 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1-11 Court St scores 90 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 90, Interior depth 78, Scale 100, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 78 out of 100: deepest interior point 49 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1920

Boston records this building as going up in 1920, which puts it in the interwar stock.

As a rule, steel or concrete frames with punched windows and plates still narrow enough for daylight to reach the middle, often with high ceilings. Among the most convertible stock there is, and the reason so many early conversions were of buildings this age. That is the era’s general tendency rather than a finding about this building — the model reads an outline and a height, and can see nothing inside — but it is the first thing an architect would want to know, and it colours how much confidence the 85% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 257,380 sq ft of converted floor, or $92.7M in total — about $398K for each of the 233 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 38,263 sq ft of windowless core, which has to be gutted, re-plumbed and sprinklered like the rest of the building and then earns nothing. Against it the model sets a completed value of $442K a home, which for 233 homes is $102.9M.

What would have to be true

This one already clears the bar. The question is how much room it has before it stops.

At $442K a home, completed value covers the $92.7M of work with $10.2M to spare. Value per home would have to fall to $398K — 10% below the assumption — before the conversion stopped penciling, or all-in cost would have to rise from $360 to $400 per square foot. Neither is a wide margin in a market that moves, but this building does not need a grant to work.

Each of these, moved on its own, would be enough to undo that for 1-11 Court St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 1-11 Court St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown Boston

1-11 Court St ranks 35th of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 45% of them, and shallower than 53% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 41st largest by estimated homes. The full survey of all 96 buildings ranks and maps every one of them, and the list by address links each to its own page.

Within the SKY zone

17th of 52 zoned SKY — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

52 of the screened buildings are zoned SKY. 1-11 Court St ranks 17th of them against a median score of 88. 40 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 51 ft from a facade against this building’s 49 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 19,019 homes. The group’s top scorer is 147 Milk St, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 175 Federal St

The screened building closest to 1-11 Court St in converted floor area is 175 Federal St: 262,123 sq ft over 20 stories, against 257,380 sq ft over 16 here.

1-11 Court St scores 90 to its 87, and with the size held roughly equal most of that lead comes from daylight efficiency: 90 out of 100 here, 86 there (83% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%). On the money they sit in the same place: each pencils without a subsidy. The two stand about 2,200 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1-11 Court St $10.0M, on the assumption it qualifies. Whether it does, no published dataset can say.

That figure assumes the building meets the Act’s vacant-and-abandoned test, which turns on code-enforcement and receivership records no city publishes.

It does not sit in a 2018 designated Opportunity Zone, so it would not draw that Section 201 priority.

Other buildings screened near 1-11 Court St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 150 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 28 State St
  42 stories · 83% daylit · 621 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 150 ft away
• 100 City Hall Plz
  7 stories · 100% daylit · 58 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 230 ft away
• 25-55 Court St
  5 stories · 100% daylit · 46 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 240 ft away
• 43-45 Devonshire St
  13 stories · 96% daylit · 111 estimated homes · scores 96/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 300 ft away