69-81 Tremont St

Where 69-81 Tremont 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 745 ft of exterior wall, and across 13 residential floors the building carries 9,243 ft of it in total, divided among the 258 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.62: 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 19.8 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 69-81 Tremont St scores 64 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 65, Interior depth 20, 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 20 out of 100: deepest interior point 72 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

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 72% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 335,026 sq ft of converted floor, or $120.6M in total — about $467K for each of the 258 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 92,530 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 258 homes is $113.9M.

What would have to be true

A $6.7M gap before any grant, which the modeled $10.0M closes. What would reopen it soonest: completed value per home 3% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $6.7M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 258 homes finishing at $467K rather than the $442K the model assumes — 6% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $360 to $340 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $429K a home. That is below the assumed value, which is why this building counts as unlocked by the grant — subject to it qualifying under the law's vacant-and-abandoned test, which this data cannot show.

Each of these, moved on its own, would be enough to undo that for 69-81 Tremont St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 69-81 Tremont St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown Boston

69-81 Tremont St ranks 83rd of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 15% of them, and shallower than 10% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 38th 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

6th 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. 69-81 Tremont St ranks 6th 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: 300 Boylston St

The screened building closest to 69-81 Tremont St in converted floor area is 300 Boylston St: 338,942 sq ft over 13 stories, against 335,026 sq ft over 14 here.

69-81 Tremont St scores 64 to its 70, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from daylight efficiency: 65 out of 100 here, 73 there (76% 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 only with the modeled RESIDE grant. The two stand about 3,300 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 69-81 Tremont 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 69-81 Tremont 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.

• 6-6B Beacon St
  10 stories · 100% daylit · 92 estimated homes · scores 94/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 150 ft away
• 1 Beacon St
  42 stories · 65% daylit · 881 estimated homes · scores 55/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 220 ft away
• 12-14A Beacon St
  9 stories · 100% daylit · 85 estimated homes · scores 94/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 350 ft away
• 31-39 Bromfield St
  11 stories · 100% daylit · 64 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 380 ft away