Affordable Apartments At The Mandarin Oriental Up For Lottery

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Nov 30th 2008 at 8:02AM

As my colleague Jared Paul Stern mentioned back in October, Boston's most expensive penthouse located atop the brand new five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel is for sale for $17 million. But those who can't afford that can still get into Back Bay's new luxurious address if they win the lottery of 10 affordable apartments in the building. The lottery is part of a city initiative to bring middle-income residents to the city's pricier addresses.

Starting on Monday, the building swill begin accepting applications for a lottery that will select tenants to live in building for rents ranging from $1,254 to $2,172 a month for the one- and two-bedroom apartments. Rents on the 25 market-rate apartments range from $6,000 to $13,000 a month. The Boston Globe reports that to qualify, individuals must make between $48,050 and $72,050 a year, and a family of four, between $68,650 and $102,950. Those who already live in Boston and handicapped tenants will be given preference. The apartments are identical to the higher-priced units including Atlantic green granite counters in the kitchen, Portofino marble in the bathrooms, soundproof windows and access to the concierge downstairs. Applications can be picked up at the lower level of the Prudential Center at 800 Boylston St. beginning Monday.

Tags: apartments, boston, mandarin oriental, MandarinOriental

Source

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

cantdrive55 Nov 30th 2008 5:40PM

just a thought - in making/having enough money to purchase a unit for $17M or pay rent upwards of $13k/month, do i REALLY want to live amongst those making in one year what i'm making in one week??? the whole concept sounds noble, but i mean really??? in my view, this will cause units to languish further than they already are...

Baron67 Dec 11th 2008 3:18PM

I can see your point cantdrive55 but do you value a person by their paycheck or their character? Its basically a class structure issue that you have brought up. I personally think its an amazing idea and much will come from it. Whats wrong with living next to a police sgt or a Draper Labs Research scientist or even a high school math teacher. None of the above are in the $17M range. Then again if I were in the $17M range I might feel strange. Its hard to say. Sounds like the model of Tent City. The low rent people are on the first floor and across the South West Corridor. The others are all upstairs.

cantdrive55 Dec 11th 2008 6:02PM

clearly, we would all like to think we judge people by their character, however, in reality if we dig deep into ourselves, i think we might find that although good in theory, it is at best difficult in execution for many of us... most people aspire to better jobs, better places to live, better lives and schools for our children than ours... the rich are no different than the poor or the middle class in that respect - i'm simply suggesting the people i know who can buy a $17M apartment want to be surrounded by similar financially able people - right or wrong... clearly for that kind of money, if so inclined, one could buy an entire apartment building in a less expensive neighborhood and use several floors for a huge duplex or triplex home - but i don't believe that happens very often... you make good points, though - thanks...