36-44 Broad St

Where 36-44 Broad 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

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

The typical floor has 893 ft of exterior wall, and across 9 residential floors the building carries 7,844 ft of it in total, divided among the 248 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is elongated at 0.42: a slab or an L, which is why so much of the floor lies within reach of a window: the outline buys daylight that a square plan of the same area would not. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 27.6 homes per floor. Its floors are not alike, though: the typical floor's deepest interior point is 38 ft from a facade, while its worst floor reaches 77 ft. The score follows the typical floor, so a podium that could not hold a bedroom does not by itself sink a slim tower above it — but it is there, and it is part of what would have to be drawn around.

Why 36-44 Broad St scores 100 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, 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 1923

Boston records this building as going up in 1923, 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 96% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 243,317 sq ft of converted floor, or $87.6M in total — about $353K for each of the 248 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 9,984 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 248 homes is $109.5M.

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 $87.6M of work with $21.9M to spare. Value per home would have to fall to $353K — 20% below the assumption — before the conversion stopped penciling, or all-in cost would have to rise from $360 to $450 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 36-44 Broad St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 36-44 Broad St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown Boston

36-44 Broad St ranks 1st of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 66% of them, and shallower than 73% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 40th 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-LOW-DT zone

1st of 25 zoned SKY-LOW-DT — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

25 of the screened buildings are zoned SKY-LOW-DT. 36-44 Broad St ranks 1st of them against a median score of 91, the top score in the group. 24 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 35 ft from a facade against this building’s 38 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 2,629 homes.

Its nearest match in size: 147 Milk St

The screened building closest to 36-44 Broad St in converted floor area is 147 Milk St: 242,850 sq ft over 10 stories, against 243,317 sq ft over 10 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 400 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 36-44 Broad 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 36-44 Broad St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 190 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 20 Custom House St
  12 stories · 98% daylit · 119 estimated homes · scores 97/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 190 ft away
• 177 Milk St
  10 stories · 90% daylit · 96 estimated homes · scores 89/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 360 ft away
• 15-19 Broad St
  33 stories · 68% daylit · 706 estimated homes · scores 35/100 (Marginal)
  about 360 ft away
• 21 Custom House St
  9 stories · 92% daylit · 82 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 370 ft away