Cushing Square Developer Seeks Equity Partner, Buyer for Delayed Project

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After more than a year of promises and delays, the developer of Cushing Village – the nearly 167,000 square-foot, multi-use development in the heart of Belmont’s Cushing Square – is actively seeking an equity partner or is hoping to sell the project’s development rights to the highest bidder as financial constraints have plaguing the project.

Beginning this month, a big-time Boston commercial real estate search firm hired by Cushing Village’s developer Acton-based Smith Legacy Partners, Inc. has been actively shopping the three-block site to an array of experienced commercial development teams and investors in an attempt to convince one to take on Smith Legacy as a partner, or to purchase the right to build the future home of 115 residential units, 230 parking spaces and nearly 36,000 square feet of retail at the corner of Trapelo Road and Common Street.

In an advertisement distributed to the commercial real estate community, Boston Realty Advisors, the Boylston Street consultancy known for its deal-making prowess, has been or will soon conduct tours of the site – now occupied by abandoned retail and commercial spaces, a laundry and a Starbucks Cafe – as it seeks a “pre-sale or joint venture development opportunity” for the development it describes as “fully permitted and shovel ready.”

Jason Weissman, BRA’s founder and principal, told the “The Real Reporter,” which covers the New England commercial real estate industry, Smith Legacy will seek “creative proposals and will entertain innovative deal structures,” with the opportunity made available “[without] pricing guidance.”

While Chris Starr, the man who has shepherd the project for the past eight years, did not comment, a member of a PR firm working with Smith Legacy was adamant the development will stay with Starr.

“To be clear, Cushing Village is not for sale – Smith Legacy Partners is pursuing partnership opportunities because they realize that others might want to invest in Belmont but there’s no intention to sell the property,” Suzanne Morse, a vice president with O’Neill and Associates wrote in an email.

Yet in its pitch, BRA makes it clear that Cushing Village “represents a rare opportunity to acquire a 163,883 gross square foot mixed-use community, on a pre-sale or joint venture basis, in one of Metro Boston’s most affluent communities.”

Smith Legacy’s apparent need for a partner or buyer would, at first glance, appear unnecessary as the market for mixed-use projects is “ideal” given the advanced recovery is sparking interest in ground-up projects, especially those permitted and ready for launch, one commercial real estate insider told “The Real Reporter.” With interest rates at historic lows, Cushing Village’s residential segment “is especially attractive given the amount of capital chasing that asset class.”

Yet, according to numerous sources within real estate, business and government, the sense Smith Legacy – a first time development team attempting to build a large development – was over-its-head with the development was evident well before the town began the planning process. In the summer of 2011, Starr and his development partner, Cambridge-based Oaktree Development, parted ways, leaving Starr without an experienced hand to reach out to banks, investors and commercial brokers.

“This deal was going south when Oaktree left,” one industry insider told the Belmontonian.

One did not need to scratch the surface very hard to hear reports of Smith Legacy’s difficulties in both securing and then keeping its financing in place. One source indicated Smith Legacy had a tentative financing deal set, but the lender backed out for an unexplained reason.

A lending source told the Belmontonian while many debt providers would listen to the developer’s pitch; none would expand their hand in agreement.

“[Starr] would have placed the biggest sign on the [SS] Pierce Building (the abandoned building where the entry to Cushing Village will be built) announcing the bank doing the deal,” said a person with knowledge of the process. “Do you see one?” they quipped.

Another source said Smith Legacy was caught in a vicious vortex of an inexperienced developer: they lacked the wherewithal to attract financing, and so commercial tenants were leery of committing to long-term leases in a project without financing. Ironically, without tenants, lenders are unwilling to fund a financing deal.

But when Starr received the Planning Board’s final OK to build after a hard-fought design process, all appearance was that Cushing Village would be up and running in record time.

After receiving the Planning Board’s OK in July 2013, Starr announced he would break ground “in a few months” with the first of the three buildings – the “Winslow” which would be located on the municipal parking lot along Trapelo Road and – completed by summer or fall of 2014, with the third building and the parking finished by the spring of 2015.

But other than crews conducting test borings and limited work on preparing the site for development, no activity commenced at the site during the rest of 2014 and into the New Year. Nor would Starr present to town or elected officials a firm financial commitment from an investor or lender.

Suddenly in March, Smith Legacy’s attorney, Mark Donahue, requested the selectmen grant a 30-day extension for the closing date of the purchase and sale agreement for the municipal parking lot until June 27. The pre-approved price for the lot is $850,000.

“We’re working diligently on a number of different fronts,” Donahue told the board, saying Smith Legacy was firming up the Starbucks relocation plans and deciding the site for temporary construction parking. Additionally, Donahue advised the board the construction would “begin between August and October.”

In addition, Donahue sought and was given the right to extend the closing date by 30 days but only by paying the town a $20,000 fee. Since that agreement was in place, Smith Legacy has deposited $80,000 into the town’s coffers.

Starr’s lack of movement on the project had tried the patience of Rojas and the other selectmen who were prepared to set a fall deadline for the municipal lot’s purchase. Only after meetings with town officials was the ultimatum shelved.

This summer, Smith Legacy attempted and failed to convince the Zoning Board of Appeals to allow Starbucks to move from its current location adjacent to the municipal parking lot to a temporary location near the corner of Belmont Street and Trapelo Road.

The future of Smith Legacy holding ownership of the property is not as crystal clear as Starr is telling people. A source told the Belmontonian an established and seasoned development team would not enter into such a deal as a “junior” partner, reducing its involvement to simply being a lender without a say in the development.

This will be at least a 60/40 deal, said a real estate source.

The real value, according to nearly everyone who discussed the project, is in the development rights; the permitting and design agreements with the town.

Smith Legacy’s current predicament – without an finalized financial package, a single new commercial tenant in 14 months (a “tavern” to be managed by a Washington Street resident to open in 2017) and few options – is now being seen as inevitable by many in town.

“This is not a complete surprise,” said Andy Rojas, chair of the Belmont Board of Selectmen who sat on the Planning Board during the majority of the 18 months it took for the town and Starr to cobble together a development deal in July 2013.

“Many involved in the process have for years thought and anticipated that Mr. Starr would need to bring in an experienced equity and development partner,” he said. “I believe that it finally has dawned on Mr. Starr that this is the only way forward for him.”

The need for an experienced hand to build what many would consider a moderate-sized suburban multi-purpose project has become critical in today’s commercial environment said one real estate observer.

“I think a lot of the reasons have to do with lenders being more demanding of higher-equity levels in a project and the developer either finds selling out a better route or if they want to stay in, they can spread the risk some and or use that capital for something else,” said Joseph Clements, founder and editor of the “The Real Reporter”, which covers the New England commercial real estate industry.

Belmont’s Home of the Week: A Queens of a House, Youse Guys

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It’s a bit of Queens, NY in Belmont. The brick/aluminum sided house at 33 Trowbridge Street – a short stroll to Clay Pit Pond and Belmont High School – will bring back fond memories of Kew Gardens and other locales in Queens County for native New Yorkers. In fact, with the increasing number of airlines flying overhead Belmont, you’d think you are under LaGuardia’s flight path while in the living room watching the Giants on TV.

How appropriate that this sturdy house, built in 1957 (the year the Giant’s left the Polo Grounds for LA!), would be built near to Clay Pit Pond that supplied clay for a brick manufacturing plant. The design was an increasingly popular one in 1950s suburbia; the stand-alone, multi-level starter with its very own enclosed garage, then a major luxury. The size alone – at 1,224 sq.-ft., it wouldn’t pass muster for most middle-income condo buyers today – screams an opportunity for a small growing family seeking a pass into the ‘burbs before heading on to the larger Colonial down the road.

And for those with a fondness of the 50s, you will be stepping into a time warp back nearly 60 years at this house that has kept many of the original features.

There are the original hardwood floors throughout the house, an updated eat-in kitchen, a separate dining room and a fireplace living room (with a side room) on the main level which can be easily used as an in-law apartment or an au-pair suite with access to a separate entrance in the laundry room.

The upper level boasts a renovated bathroom with new cabinetry, a master bedroom and second bedroom.

There is central AC, an alarm system, vinyl siding, a sprinkler system with separate water meter, a heated one-car garage, a large shed, a new patio and a new heating system.

 

Price: $665,00

Rooms: 6

Bedrooms: 2

Baths: 2

Living Area: 1,224 sq.-ft.

Lot Size: 0.14 Acres

Sold in Belmont: Only One House Sold This Week … But What A House

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A weekly recap of residential properties bought in the past seven days in the “Town of Homes.”

• 25 Rockmont Rd. Colonial “reminiscent of an English country cottage” (1928), Sold for: $2,272,500. Listed at $2,500,000. Living area: 4,499 sq.-ft. 10 rooms; 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. On the market: 166 days.

This Belmont Hill house sold for $795,000 in May, 1996 but there has been several major changes: remodel kitchen master suite and bathroom for $100,000 (1996); replace ten windows, three doors and the foundation of the bay window (1998); remodel a bathroom (1999);  finish the existing attic (2000); remodel the full bathroom on the second floor (2010); and add a study in the attic (2011).  

Sold in Belmont: Condos, a Cape and Tudor Taken Off the Block

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A weekly recap of residential properties bought in the past seven days in the “Town of Homes.”

• 59 Vernon Rd. Expanded Cape (1934), Sold for: $760,000. Listed at $785,000. Living area: 1,684 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 75 days.

• 58 Channing Rd., #2. Two-level (attic) condominium, Sold for: $464,000. Listed at $419,000. Living area: 1,248 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 44 days.

• 61 Dartmouth St., #1. Single-floor condominium, Sold for: $380,000. Listed at $385,000. Living area: 906 sq.-ft. 5 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 63 days.

• 202 Goden St. Brick and shingle Tudor-inspired Colonial (1930), Sold for: $1,000,000. Listed at $959,000. Living area: 2,443 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 55 days.

 

Belmont House of the Week: 10 Woods Rd.

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I have traveled by this Arnold Swartzernegger of homes on Woods Road a few times and wondered, “What is it?” A two family? Connected town houses? Or could it be a one family?

Recently placed on the market, 10 Woods Rd. is, in fact, a single residency house. And what a building. It reminds me of what happens when you put too much air into an inner tube: Give it room. It could blow!

The livable floor space is a whopping 3,661 square feet on three floors, a volume usually seen in one of the Belmont Hill manse. But this is Woods Road, the hockey-stick shaped enclosed road off Bacon Road and a block from the Grove Street Playground.

The structure dominates the surrounding homes built 60+ years ago as affordable post-war housing. For example, the average size of the nearby homes is about 1,400 sq.-ft. with its next door neighbor coming in at 1,152 sq.-ft.

Not that 10 Wood Rd. has always been a standout; until 2006, it was just like all the other houses on the street, a circa 1950 Cape that sold for $485,000 in 2005. Within four months of its purchase, the new owner gained a town permit to perform $100,000 of remodeling work for construction to the rear and to build upwards. 

The end result is the sort of “home on steroids” that prompts some residents to discuss placing additional restrictions on the acceptable floor-area-ratio in residential areas. It’s grandious for the street in both bulk and height, although the size is dampened somewhat as it’s adjacent to a rear yard to the house on Bacon Road.

I know that someone’s design preference is a personal one, but I can’t help but comment on 10 Woods Rd. Sorry but it’s a miss in many ways. It would work in a new 20,000 person gated-communities that spring up in the prairies of Colorado but here, it’s a mishmash of concepts that don’t come close to working as a cohesive housing design. From the dominate garage door, the front door is overshadowed by a pair of two-story columns (?) and the undersized “Evita” terrace above it, the lonely Victorian-style turret and the elongated windows, it’s far too busy and out-of-place to be interesting or innovative. The problem is the lot is narrow which forced the designer to cram so much in the front. Better would have been one central idea – a grand front entrance – with the upper floors set back along with the garage.

What the house lacks outside it gains inside. The renovation blew out the space to allow for an open floor plan, high ceiling heights and an open staircase. The foyer is separated by French doors to the living room, which moves into the kitchen and the dining room.

The main floor also has a family room that is adjacent to the dining area, all with Brazilian wood floors. 

The second floor has an oversized landing that opens to a home office. The master bedroom features two walk-in closets and a bathroom with double sinks and a Jacuzzi. There are two additional bedrooms and full bath on the floor.

The third floor offers a pair of bedrooms, one with a sitting area and an en-suite bathroom, ‘ideally suited for guests, older children or an au pair.”

There is that attached one-car garage and a landscaped backyard with patio.

If sold for its listed price, it will be a first for Woods Road; the first home that sells for a cool million.

Listed at $1,159,000.

Listed By: Hammond Residential Real Estate, Martha Brown.

 

 

Belmont Open Houses: Check Out Belmont’s Own Downton Abbey!

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It remains the most grandiose building on the McLean Hospital campus. The brick Georgian mansion – much like Highclere Castle, the grand house used in PBS’s “Downton Abbey” – formerly known as Upham Memorial Hall is finally getting its long overdue rehab by developer Northland Residential Corp. as it’s being transformed into several single-level million-dollar condominiums, one of which is part of an open house.

It’s a little bit of Manhattan housing in the Woodlands at Belmont Hill development. Yet apparently buyers will not have the advantages of living in a co-op. Just think, you and your fellow residents will have no say what Pete, Georgie or Dim will be living down the common hall. Oh, my dear!

What you will get living there is a new name for the abode, “Upham House,” with a most interesting and curious tag line in accompanying real estate ads: “Celebrating the Past.”

That would appear, at first, to be a wonderful phrase … until you dig a little deeper into the building’s past. You see, since opening in 1893 and for the next century, Upham Hall had served as the upscale home for a select number of wealth residents who were stark, raving mad.

In fact, Upham Hall was known as the “Harvard Club” since, as Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam wrote in this outstanding book on McLean Hospital, Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America’s Premier Mental Hospital, each of the nine suites was occupied by alumni of the great school who suffered from incurable mental illness.

Who were these men and women who previously occupied Upham? Here’s an excerpt from Holly Brubach’s review of Gracefully Insane:

“Louis Agassiz Shaw, a murderer and a snob who inhabited a book-lined suite in Upham Memorial, and Carl Liebman, a paranoid schizophrenic unsuccessfully analyzed by Freud, are cheerfully presented in the context of a cast straight out of a 30’s screwball comedy. Shaw, who had strangled his maid, acquires a sidekick, ”a Bible-thumping companion” by the name of Joan Tunney Wilkinson, daughter of the famous boxer Gene Tunney and sister of Senator John Tunney, accused of killing her husband on Easter Sunday, 1970. ”At McLean,” Beam writes, she ”came under the sway of the Christian revival group the Way. . . . At hall meetings . . . Wilkinson was wont to say, ‘Louis, we must confess our sins.’ His inevitable answer: ‘Oh, Joan, no.’ ” Liebman, whose conviction that he was being followed by detectives was cited by his doctors as evidence of his incurable paranoia, was in fact being followed by detectives, who had been hired by his family.”

By the 1950s, Upham Hall had became “a dumping ground for chronically ill, elderly patients — practically all of them rich — whose families had cut lifetime financial deals with the hospital. There was little incentive to ‘cure’ the Uphamites because their families had paid good money never to see them again,” writes Beam.

That’s some history to be celebrating.

But while its past might not be the expected lure for prospectus buyers as Northland is hoping, there is one small piece of its history that could: in 1966, Upham was the involuntary home of the great blues and pop performer Ray Charles. Rather than send him to prison for five years on a heroin possession charge, a judge said Charles would receive four years’ probation if he entered McLean for observation and a drugs test.

While there, Charles would play the grand piano in the ground floor living room with his fellow “guests” including a “classical cat, who could really wail.”

So what will you find when you attend this weekend’s open house?

The suite up for sale has seven rooms, 2.5 baths, an open floor plan with a nearly 10-foot tall ceiling and more than 2,800 square feet of living space. It offers an outdoor veranda, a private elevator, garage parking and dedicated storage room.

“The home is well suited for entertaining” as the living and dining rooms share a double-sided fireplace and the kitchen will have a commanding stone-topped island and state of the art appliance package (Subzero, Wolfe, Asko). The design provides for a luxurious owner’s suite, a walk-in closet with built-in-closet system, a grand marble shower and double vanity with stone countertop, as well as two additional bedrooms and a spacious den with access to the veranda.

Hardwood flooring (that would be a wooden floor) and distinctive millwork executed by a “master craftsman” will further distinguish this residence. A wide range of customized appointments is available through our in-house design expert.

No mention of any spirits of former residents who ended their days in the “Hall” included in the listed price of $1,495,000.

The open house, located at 20 South Cottage Rd., takes place on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 20 and 21 from noon to 4 p.m. 

Sold in Belmont: Big Bucks for Brick Ranch

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A weekly recap of residential properties bought in the past seven days in the “Town of Homes.”

• 22 Vernon Rd. Side-entrance Colonial (1934), Sold for: $717,500. Listed at $749,000. Living area: 1,841 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 62 days.

• 17 Bartlett Ave., #2. Two-level condominium, Sold for: $515,000. Listed at $479,000. Living area: 1,828 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 90 days.

• 27 Common St. Brick English Tudor (1930), Sold for: $1,242,500. Listed at $1,250,000. Living area: 2,705 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 3 baths. On the market: 124 days.

• 59 Tobey Rd. Side-entrance Colonial (1930), Sold for: $780,000. Listed at $699,000. Living area: 1,632 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 40 days.

• 110 Crestview Rd. Post-war brick Ranch (1960), Sold for: $1,122,000. Listed at $1,100,000. Living area: 2,251 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 98 days.

• 24 Eliot Rd. Garrison-Colonial (1950), Sold for: $666,500. Listed at $699,000. Living area: 1,418 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 123 days.

• 96 Country Club Lane. French Colonial (1937), Sold for: $1,480,000. Listed at $1,495,000. Living area: 2,993 sq.-ft. 11 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths. On the market: 107 days.

• 115 Winn St. A pretty Cape (1942), Sold for: $706,000. Listed at $649,000. Living area: 1,267 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 36 days.

Sold in Belmont: Polar Opposites on the Affordability Scale

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A weekly recap of residential properties bought in the past seven days in the “Town of Homes.”

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• 91 Richmond Rd. Classic Garrison-style Colonial (1940), Sold for: $1,110,000. Listed at $1,129,900. Living area: 2,204 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 97 days.

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• 51 Berwick St. #3. Single-floor condominium (1900), Sold for: $390,000. Listed at $365,000. Living area: 1,000 sq.-ft. 4 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 45 days.

 

Belmont Home of the Week: 115 Winn St.

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Here is a “win-Winn” for a buyer looking for charming rather then bigness in Belmont.

(Realtors: feel free to use “win-Winn” when you are advertising a listing on the street.)

The six-room Cape-style at 115 Winn St. is your typical WWII construction, a mere 1,267 sq.-ft. (most condos in town have about the same space) so it’s a bit tight. But unlike a townhouse or a top-floor condo, you’ll have a HOUSE on a mostly quiet street (you will hear the MBTA commuter trains come by in the early morning and late night) on your own lot that includes a deck.

On the ground floor, there is a fire-placed living room, a formal dining room, an updated kitchen, a den with a bow-front window overlooking the yard and half bath. The den’s 70’s inspired-walls will remind you of the Beatles’ song, “Norwegian Wood,” complete with exposed knotted-wood panels installed on an 45-degree angle. Not to everyone’s taste, to say the least.

The second level has two bedrooms and full bath, the basement has a family room which can also be used as a third bedroom with access to a full bath.

Additional features include hardwood floors, a one-car garage, the afore mentioned deck, it is a short walk to the Winn Brook Elementary, Joey’s Park, municipal tennis courts, public transportation, Belmont Center and all major routes out of town.

Price: $649,000.

Listed by Barbara Nolan of Coldwell Banker, 617-901-6900

Sold in Belmont: New Construction Tanks, Ol’ Standards Best List Price

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A weekly recap of residential properties bought in the past seven days in the “Town of Homes.”

• 134 Beech St. New townhouse condominium (2014), Sold for: $609,000. Listed at $649,900. Living area: 1,400 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 82 days.

• 63 Oak Ave. Turn-of-the-century Colonial Revival (1906), Sold for: $1,290,000. Listed at $1,250,000. Living area: 2,648 sq.-ft. 8 rooms; 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. On the market: 44 days.

• 16 B St. New townhouse condominium (2014), Sold for: $876,525. Listed at $998,000. Living area: 1,103 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 1 baths. On the market: 47 days.

• 3 Colonial Terrace. Gambrel/Dutch Colonial (1917), Sold for: $800,000. Listed at $799,000. Living area: 1,570 sq.-ft. 9 rooms; 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On the market: 36 days.

• 307-309 Beech St. Multifamily (1922), Sold for: $803,000. Listed at $799,000. Living area: 2,732 sq.-ft. 13 rooms; 7 bedrooms, 3 baths. On the market: 50 days.

• 237 Brighton St. Center-entrance Colonial (1940), Sold for: $760,000. Listed at $735,000. Living area: 1,652 sq.-ft. 7 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 35 days.

• 136 Beech St. New townhouse condominium (2014), Sold for: $600,000. Listed at $649,900. Living area: 1,400 sq.-ft. 6 rooms; 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths. On the market: 78 days.

• 34 Oxford Ave. Condominium (2014), Sold for: $458,000. Listed at $429,000. Living area: 1,315 sq.-ft. 4 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 2 baths. On the market: 104 days.