High-end luxury lofts may be old news in New York’s Soho, where the starving artists who pioneered the area have become as rare a sight as affordable restaurants, but in Boston, the loft market had remained at a more entry level price point…until now.
Several new projects are breaking boundaries in downtown Boston for high-end loft living. Chief among them is the 54-unit former Virgin Records Building at 360 Newbury, designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry, developed by Boston Residential Group and marketed by Otis and Ahearn, Boston’s premier residential brokerage and marketing company. With high-style, luxury finish units selling for between $650,000 to over $2 million, the project is pushing the loft market into a whole new arena.
“The loft concept started in Boston as a fairly modest build-out, offered at inexpensive prices and in pioneering locations,” says Otis & Ahearn president Kevin Ahearn. “Today, it has expanded dramatically into very expensive housing as it should. We are marketing another project downtown — Lafayette Lofts, at the corner of Kingston and Essex — with a price range starting at $500,000 up to $1.5 million and there are more coming including in Midtown / Downtown Crossing. The whole loft market has picked up a lot of steam by going to a higher price point and a higher finish” broadening buyer profiles.
