157-175 Devonshire St

Where 157-175 Devonshire 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 591 ft of exterior wall, and across 10 residential floors the building carries 5,909 ft of it in total, divided among the 162 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.56: 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 16.2 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 157-175 Devonshire St scores 100 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 99, Scale 100, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Every component scores at or near full marks, so nothing in the geometry or the pro-forma is holding this one back — daylight efficiency carries the most weight of the four.

Built in 1908

Boston records this building as going up in 1908, which puts it in the pre-1920 stock.

As a rule, the era that converts most readily: load-bearing masonry, small floor plates laid out before deep-plan offices were possible, operable windows and generous floor-to-floor heights. The usual obstacles are not daylight but hazardous materials, lifts and bringing structure up to current code. 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 97% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 156,162 sq ft of converted floor, or $56.2M in total — about $347K for each of the 162 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 4,141 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 162 homes is $71.5M.

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 $56.2M of work with $15.3M to spare. Value per home would have to fall to $347K — 21% below the assumption — before the conversion stopped penciling, or all-in cost would have to rise from $360 to $458 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 157-175 Devonshire St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 157-175 Devonshire St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown Boston

157-175 Devonshire St ranks 5th of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 71% of them, and shallower than 69% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 48th 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

2nd of 52 zoned SKY — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

52 of the screened buildings are zoned SKY. 157-175 Devonshire St ranks 2nd 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 40 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: 315-333 Washington St

The screened building closest to 157-175 Devonshire St in converted floor area is 315-333 Washington St: 155,113 sq ft over 8 stories, against 156,162 sq ft over 11 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 100 here, 100 there — so at this size the screen reads them as much the same prospect. On the money they sit in the same place: each pencils without a subsidy. The two stand about 500 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 157-175 Devonshire St $9.7M, 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 157-175 Devonshire St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 160 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 181-185 Devonshire St
  10 stories · 100% daylit · 68 estimated homes · scores 92/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 160 ft away
• 1 Federal St
  43 stories · 68% daylit · 916 estimated homes · scores 62/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 190 ft away
• 33 Arch St
  34 stories · 72% daylit · 620 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 200 ft away
• 50 Milk St
  23 stories · 83% daylit · 289 estimated homes · scores 85/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 230 ft away