Who Owns Boston? Patrick Mannion - pmannion@college
Land Ownership by Sector
Land ownership, particularly in urban areas, is a complex issue. An individual or organization’s holdings may be measured by area or by value, by potential sale price per unit area, or by the age-old adage “location, location, location.”
Public Private
In Boston, a relatively liberal city where the government is involved in many parts of life, the public sphere’s influence is borne out in the man-made landscape. Public entities control 54% of land in Boston - this includes property held by the federal, state, and city governments. The majority, however, is dispersed across approximately 1000 sub-agencies, from the Department of Parks & Recreation to the MBTA. Private 46%
Private land ownership is largely residential and commercial, and broken into many small chunks of land. These are much less centralized in their ownership - there are over 90,000 distinct private owners.
Public 54%
Top 5 Landholders, by Area Private THE GARDENS AT GETHSEMANE IN STERLING SUFFOLK RACECOURSE CSX TRANSPORTATION INC S M LORUSSO & SONS INC NEW GEORGETOWNE LLC Public CITY OF BOSTON MASS PORT AUTHORTY COMMWLTH OF MASS MASS BAY TRANSP AUTH FOREST HILLS CEMETERY
sqft 6,454,590 4,739,040 3,220,620 3,064,972 2,659,092 sqft 132,960,466 101,596,835 119,318,130 12,996,613 10,677,266
4.5% In Boston, the top 5 private landholders combined own just 4.5% of the total area controlled classified as private property. Public property ownership is very decentralized
40.5% Meanwhile, the top 5 public landholders own 40.5% of publicallyzoned land. Public land ownership is quite concentrated.
Top 5 Landholders, by Value Private BP PRUCENTER ACQUISITION LLC BP HANCOCK LLC TST 125 HIGH STREET L L C ONE HUNDRED FEDERAL ST LPS LINCOLN STREET PROPERTY
porfolio value $727,991,000 $600,000,000 $527,922,500 $406,502,500 $397,894,800
The value held by top private landholders is concentrated in a similar fashion to the land area, with the top 5 holders owning just 3.2% of private land value. Note that none of the largest holding by area reoccur in the top value porfolios.
Public CITY OF BOSTON COMMONWEALTH OF MASS NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY HARVARD COLLEGE BOSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY
porfolio value $4,920,909,737 $2,691,427,500 $1,322,870,294 $1,126,550,797 $695,493,504
The public landownership is even more concentrated by value, and many of the same top players from the area-wise assessment are seen again. These five control a whopping 67.6% of public land value.
3.2%
67.6%
Top 5 Private Owners by Value < The top 5 private landowners by value own a tiny portion of Boston’s real estate. As we will see on the next page, this is possible because of the immense property value concentrated in a relatively small amount of land.
Top 5 Private Owners by Area The city of Boston is the largest landholder both by unit area and by property value. > < The top 5 private landowners own a much smaller portfolio, which in total amounts to just 15% of the City of Boston’s holdings.
Public land ownership is very concentrated at the top, and is spread over just 1000 owners. Private land ownership is dispersed across 90,000+ owners, but at the top end of value per square foot, is more expensive space. The City of Boston
Location of Highest Value-per-sqft Property Legend units = $/sqft -2.5σ > X -1.5σ < X < -0.5σ - 0.5σ < X < AVG AVG < X < 0.5σ 0.5σ < X < 1.5σ X > 1.5σ min = 0, avg = 140, max = 9050 Boston’s most expensive land is concentrated in a relatively small number of properties. The land values range from just a few dollars tonearly $10,000 per square foot, but it all depends on where you want to be. Most of the city’s valuable land is concentrated along the South bank of the Charles River, Downtown, and in the North End. Though the most valuable portfolios are comprised of public properties, the value per square foot map paints a different picture. Since the map of all property values is so skewed to the right, we focus only on the above-average property prices for a moment. Below, we see that private landowners take the cake in terms of how much you’ll pay to get a space.
Location of Highest Cost-Per-Sqft Property > AVG properties; perspective height represents value, in $ / sqft
max: $9050 / sqft
Public Private min: $140 / sqft (BOS AVG)
Land Usage Across Boston
The land use pattern in Boston reflects a very residential city, with pockets of commerical-use properties. These commercial properties include everything from stores to office spaces. Their overall square footage is understated on this map, however, because of lack of a three-dimensional perspective. The Prudential and Hancock centers, Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two most valuable properties, are mere blips on this map.
Legend Residential Commercial Mixed-use Non-taxed Industrial
Land Usage on Newbury Street
The wide swaths of public land are also reflected on this map, though they are bundled with other non-taxed entities for visual simplicity. A key takeaway from this map is the division of residential from commerical property in Boston there is very little mixeduse space.
Of the mixed-use space that does exist, much of it is concentrated along Newbury Street. This stretch is home to some of the most valuable land in Boston, along with the most notable shops for fashion and food afficionados. Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s willingness to mix use of space is most likely a result of the cost per sqft, explored on the next map.
DATA SOURCES: ESRI, City of Boston SOFTWARE: ArcMap, ArcScene, Excel, Stata
Property Value - Newbury Street Legend units = $/sqft -2.5σ > X -1.5σ < X < -0.5σ - 0.5σ < X < AVG AVG < X < 0.5σ 0.5σ < X < 1.5σ X > 1.5σ min = 75, avg = 790, max = 9050
Property Value and Land Use - Charlestown Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston located in the city’s northermost region. It was infamous for years for being home to the Irish mafia, which has been the subject of several movies made there. Charlestown has a large residential district in its core, though the quality of this housing is substantially lower than one might find along Beacon Street down towards Newbury. The map below illustrates the land use by color, and the difference from the average Boston land cost by perspective height. The take-away from this graph is that the central region of Charlestown is exceptionally low-cost, which is likely related in some way to the use of this property as residential space. The high end of the land values for this neighborhood are substantially greater than the Boston average of $140 / sqft, but these spaces are controlled either by private commercial entities, or by public and non-taxed entitites. All told, Charlestown is a cheap place to live, but you won’t be much better off than average if your goal is to set up shop in business.
Conclusion Boston is a region with immense cultural history, a very involved government, and a thriving residential population. The mixture of this three elements manifests clearly in maps of land ownership, value and use. The residential territory is vast, the government controls and protects much of the historic land and cultural buildings, and what commercial space is left over is quite expensive. These are the defining characteristics of who owns Boston.
max: $1369 / sqft
Residential
Non-taxed
Commercial Mixed
Industrial
min: $1 / sqft