42-60 Federal St

Where 42-60 Federal 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

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

The typical floor has 398 ft of exterior wall, and across 9 residential floors the building carries 3,581 ft of it in total, divided among the 81 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.73: 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 9.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 42-60 Federal St scores 89 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 85, Scale 54, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 54 out of 100: 81 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1910

Boston records this building as going up in 1910, 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 92% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 82,690 sq ft of converted floor, or $29.8M in total — about $368K for each of the 81 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 6,215 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 81 homes is $35.8M.

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 $29.8M of work with $6.0M to spare. Value per home would have to fall to $368K — 17% below the assumption — before the conversion stopped penciling, or all-in cost would have to rise from $360 to $432 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 42-60 Federal St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 42-60 Federal St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown Boston

42-60 Federal St ranks 43rd of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 59% of them, and shallower than 58% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 72nd 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

20th of 52 zoned SKY — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

52 of the screened buildings are zoned SKY. 42-60 Federal St ranks 20th 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 46 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: 21 Custom House St

The screened building closest to 42-60 Federal St in converted floor area is 21 Custom House St: 83,675 sq ft over 9 stories, against 82,690 sq ft over 10 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 89 here, 91 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 1,200 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 42-60 Federal St $4.9M, 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 42-60 Federal St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 80 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 70 Federal St
  9 stories · 100% daylit · 60 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 80 ft away
• 125-135 Congress St
  8 stories · 98% daylit · 49 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 80 ft away
• 1 Federal St
  43 stories · 68% daylit · 916 estimated homes · scores 62/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 200 ft away
• 14-24 Federal St
  11 stories · 98% daylit · 130 estimated homes · scores 98/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 210 ft away