I’d recommend avoiding 3 Avery; see “part of you dies”, above. You have all the disadvantages of the Ritz, with none of the glitz – and last I heard, your neighbors at 2 Avery were pushing for a separate entrance so they didn’t have to deal with the riff-raff.

I think there are plenty of *opportunities* in DTX – the zoning there is pretty flexible, as I recall – but those would require wanting to develop a building, live in one condo, and sell the other units, and finding someone who’d loan that kinda money right now. There’s just not a lot of housing there… closer to the Greenway, there were a bunch of small condo projects going on in 2006 that should be done by now.

Did Broadluxe ever get done? They were going to be more reasonable, weren’t they?

There might even be units at 45 Province, I don’t remember what the smaller units are going for.

Seriously – there’s a certain part of you that dies when you live there. I had to get all the way up to Central Square to revive it.

It’s not just no grocery store, but no reliable access to your car; there’s no staging area for the (required) valet, so it can take 5 minutes or 45 minutes to get going, with no way to know. (They’ll always tell you “right away”, even if you ask for the real wait time.) And, of course, your neighbors are empty storefronts, and probably always will be; look how they chased away that sushi bar. There were rumors in early 2007 of a coffee shop opening on the first floor. A year later, that space is still vacant too. Add that to the Emerson and Suffolk construction, and the vacant Kensington Place, not to mention your self-important neighbors (“Don’t you know who I am?”), and constant rock-star tour buses in front of the hotel, and it’s just not a pleasant environment.

45 Province has remarkable views above the 18th floor (almost half the building); John, have you seen the “simulated view” in the sales office? There are a bunch of ~1400SF condos on the south tip of the building that have windows on three sides and one or two balconies. As for the neighborhood, it’s a totally different feeling than the Ritz, even though it’s just blocks away. There’s a lot more life at the north end of Washington Street; after the financial district closes for the evening, Faneuil Hall starts to pick up. There’s lots of pedestrian traffic. Yeah, I’d live there, except maybe for the valet parking again (which Abbey claims they’ve designed to an 8-minute max wait).

Are they really targeting suburban transplants? I went to one of their sales parties, back when I had delusions of living there, and a surprising number of buyers were in their 30s. Or, at least, a surprising number of buyers who went to a sales party. I guess that may be the distinction.

PS – John: “That’s true.” I think you just nodded in agreement with yourself.