1 Beacon St

Where 1 Beacon 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

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

The typical floor has 716 ft of exterior wall, and across 41 residential floors the building carries 29,340 ft of it in total, divided among the 881 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.76: close to a square or a circle, the most efficient envelope an office can have and the least generous one for apartments: little perimeter to divide among homes. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 21.5 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1 Beacon St scores 55 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 51, Interior depth 20, Scale 100, Finance 80 — 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 20 out of 100: deepest interior point 72 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1973

Boston records this building as going up in 1973, which puts it in the late-modern stock.

As a rule, typically the hardest to convert: the deepest plates of any era, large central cores, and floor-to-floor heights tight enough that running residential drainage under a ceiling can be the thing that ends a project. 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 65% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 1,262,700 sq ft of converted floor, or $454.6M in total — about $516K for each of the 881 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 436,690 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 881 homes is $389.0M.

What would have to be true

A $65.6M gap before any grant, $55.6M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 13% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $65.6M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 881 homes finishing at $516K rather than the $442K the model assumes — 17% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $308 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $505K a home. That is still above the $442K assumed, leaving $55.6M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 1 Beacon St, one alone would close the gap at:

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

How it compares in Downtown Boston

1 Beacon St ranks 88th of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 7% of them, and shallower than 11% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 9th 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 PEMBERTON SQUARE PROTECTION AREA zone

7th of 7 zoned PEMBERTON SQUARE PROTECTION AREA — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

7 of the screened buildings are zoned PEMBERTON SQUARE PROTECTION AREA. 1 Beacon St ranks 7th of them against a median score of 79. 5 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 60 ft from a facade against this building’s 72 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 2,645 homes. The group’s top scorer is 6-6B Beacon St, at 94.

Its nearest match in size: 1 Federal St

The screened building closest to 1 Beacon St in converted floor area is 1 Federal St: 1,272,879 sq ft over 43 stories, against 1,262,700 sq ft over 42 here.

1 Beacon St scores 55 to its 62, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from interior depth: 20 out of 100 here, 36 there (deepest interior point 65 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft). On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 1,300 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1 Beacon 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 Beacon St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 220 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 69-81 Tremont St
  14 stories · 72% daylit · 258 estimated homes · scores 64/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 220 ft away
• 6-6B Beacon St
  10 stories · 100% daylit · 92 estimated homes · scores 94/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 260 ft away
• 30-40 Court St
  7 stories · 94% daylit · 290 estimated homes · scores 92/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 380 ft away
• 21-23 Beacon St
  10 stories · 83% daylit · already a condominium building
  about 440 ft away