Latest news with #DanMathews
Boston Globe
31-07-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
The federal government could soon sell these three big downtown Boston buildings
Together, the buildings span 2.6 million square feet — more than two Millennium Towers' worth of office space — and have an assessed value of more than $586 million. (As government properties, the buildings are exempt from paying property taxes to the city of Boston.) Should they hit the market, they'd be among the largest office buildings sold here since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The opportunity to develop a huge amount of prime property in downtown Boston is likely to be of intense interest to the city's real estate development world. But there's no guarantee that the PBRB would recommend the three properties for sale yet. It's still considering potential cost savings of consolidating offices, along with the expected cost of deferred maintenance. Advertisement The Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building on Causeway Street in Boston. Lane Turner/Globe Staff But Dan Mathews, a PBRB board member and former commissioner of the public buildings service at the General Services Administration, said at Wednesday's meeting that he felt the buildings could fetch a strong price. Advertisement 'In this market, the value proposition is very, very strong, and I think there's a path forward to actually implement it,' he said. 'There, frankly, couldn't be a better time to be securing long-term leases in the private market.' Much like the private office market — Meanwhile much of the federal government's 180 million-square-foot property portfolio needs extensive repair, and is riddled with expensive problems such as antiquated air systems, leaking roofs, unusable elevators, and flooding basements, the board said. Buildings managed by the GSA are on average more than 50 years old. 'Congress cannot appropriate its way out of this maintenance backlog,' said Nick Rahall, a former congressman from West Virginia and PBRB board member. 'The inventory needs to be shrunk so tax dollars can be invested in properties where employees are actually coming to work.' Earlier this year, the Office of Management and Budget Advertisement For all the buildings it studies, the JFK, O'Neill, and McCormack buildings, the board said Wednesday it would consider a number of different disposal options, including an outright sale, a joint venture, or a ground lease. But 'That's part of the discussion,' he said. 'We can sell the building, but if we only get $1 for it, is it worth selling at that point?' The John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse at 5 Post Office Square in Boston. Lane Turner/Globe Staff Capuano said the likelihood of the federal government selling all three of the buildings 'is probably not very high,' adding that, 'if we did, that would have an impact on the local market.' Since the pandemic, many downtown Boston office buildings have been selling at steep discounts. The JFK building at 15 New Sudbury St. spans 1 million square feet on 4.5 acres adjoining City Hall Plaza and finished construction in 1966. It has twin 26-story towers and an attached four-story low-rise portion, and is on National Register of Historic Places. Also on the National Register is the McCormack building, a freestanding granite-clad building with three towers in a U shape — a 22-story recessed tower and two other 17-story towers, oriented toward Post Office Square. The McCormack building in particular 'lends itself very well to residential' development, Mathews said. Advertisement And the Tip O'Neill Federal Building, an 810,407-square-foot pink granite office of 11 and 5 stories, dates to 1985 and is on the same block as the multibillion-dollar The Hub on Causeway mixed-use project above North Station. Beyond the three major downtown federal buildings, the PBRB is also considering recommending the sale of a warehouse and parking lot at 11 Channel St. near the Seaport's eastern edge South Boston, along with the Philip J. Philbin Federal Office Building in Fitchburg and the US Customs and Border Protection office in New Bedford. The PBRB has until December 2026 to make a recommendation, but Mathews said the recommendations would ideally come sooner than that. The John F. Kennedy Federal Building (center) on Sudbury Street in Boston. Lane Turner/Globe Staff Catherine Carlock can be reached at
BBC News
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Ozzy Osbourne's artwork with chimps goes up for auction
If you're obsessed with Ozzy Osbourne, you might be tempted to purchase his latest quirky music legend has produced an abstract art collection with chimpanzees from Florida to raise funds for the animal sanctuary Save the canvases are going under the hammer at Omega Auctions in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside, with current bids sitting at more than £2,000 a artworks are signed by Ozzy and named after his songs and albums: Technical Ecstasy, Electric Funeral, Blizzard of Ozz, Tattooed Dancer and Paranoid. Ozzy painted acrylic base coats onto the canvases and then the apes at the sanctuary added their own brushstrokes. The auction house is offering art viewings by appointment on Monday before the auction closes on 17 July. "I paint because it gives me peace of mind, but I don't sell my paintings," Ozzy said."I've made an exception with these collaborations as it raises money for Save the Chimps, a sanctuary for hundreds of apes rescued from labs, roadside zoos and wildlife traffickers," he Osbourne said that the paintings would not only raise "much needed" funds for the sanctuary, but would promote its awareness to the public. The chimps enjoy taking part in a range of activities at the sanctuary in Florida, from food puzzles and foraging to pictures books and painting, Save the Chimps said."Painting is just one of many enrichment activities we offer our residents," director Dan Mathews said. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Boston Globe
22-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
As feds look to downsize, downtown Coast Guard building could go up for sale
Advertisement The 247 federal workers stationed at the 408 Atlantic Ave. office can relocate to other federal properties in the area, said Dan Mathews, a PBRB board member. The US Coast Guard has another, larger, waterfront location in Boston's North End. 'Then it puts that property into a developable state, where it can be developed with private funds which will generate tax revenue and would be a great economic benefit to the city of Boston,' Mathews said. Since last April, the PBRB said it had twice notified US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, along with Rep. Stephen Lynch, of the possible sale of 408 Atlantic Ave. The board estimates the building would cost $91 million to modernize, and that it has $28 million in deferred maintenance. Advertisement 'The property is potentially suitable for conversion to residential use and the building could accommodate 110 housing units,' the PBRB report said. Related : The building sits within 42 acres of waterfront covered by the city's Downtown Municipal Harbor Plan, that outlined development and zoning guidelines from Long Wharf to the Moakley Bridge. The plan highlighted possible development at the Harbor Garage, where developer Don Chiofaro has long envisioned a tower, along with development at the Hook Lobster site. The Coast Guard building sits along Fort Point Channel near the Northern Ave. Bridge. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff In her time as Acting Mayor, Kim Janey For its part, the PBRB is a bipartisan group created by Congress in 2019 to identify underutilized federal properties that could be sold or consolidated. Since 2020, ten federal properties that the PBRB suggested shedding have been sold for $193 million; an 11th is is under agreement for $130 million. Selling Boston's Coast Guard office would mean a cost saving potential of $138 million for the federal government, the PBRB said, and relocating the Coast Guard into other government-owned space would reduce operating expenses by more than $1 million annually. The federal Office of Management and Budget needs to approve the suggested list of properties to sell and leases to consolidate, which isn't a guarantee. PBRB in late 2021 suggested 15 properties to sell in ten states, but OMB later rejected the recommendation. Mathews, who was appointed to the board last year by former President Biden, said that the board felt 'optimistic' about OMB approving the latest round of suggested properties. Related : Advertisement 'The financial case is really quite strong,' he said. If approved, shedding the 11 properties would cut 7.4 million square feet from the federal government's real estate portfolio and would save around $5.4 billion in future maintenance or other building management costs over three decades. The properties combined could create $346 million in sales proceeds, an estimate Mathews said was 'conservative.' The PBRB worked with real estate advisor Jones Lang LaSalle to determine which properties should be recommended for sale. The General Services Administration, which will be running the sale process, has recently renewed a contract that allows it to hire real estate brokerages to sell the properties. On a press call Thursday, PBRB board members said it was difficult to give exact timing of when the sale process would start. The PBRB studied 58 federally controlled properties in downtown central business districts before releasing its suggestions this month. Beyond the Boston Coast Guard office, the board has identified nine office buildings in Miami, Nashville, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, and the Washington, D.C. area that could be sold, along with three U.S. Department of Agriculture leases in Albuquerque, New Mexico that could be consolidated. The buildings include a vacant 11-story office that sits on three acres at Washington, D.C.'s L'Enfant Plaza, a 29-story concrete office in downtown Atlanta, and a 1.8 million-square-foot office on nearly 16 acres directly south of the National Mall that's home to 4,898 Department of Energy workers and needs $379 million in immediate repairs. Catherine Carlock can be reached at
