High life in Boston’s Seaport continues; $2M to start at this new tower

Sitting in the footprint of the former Whiskey Priest and Atlantic Beer Garden on the Seaport waterfront, there’s a new 250-foot glass tower built to look like a sail unfurling in the wind.

The old Seaport bars were demolished in 2018 to make way for a new St. Regis installment, swept by the area’s ongoing wave of luxury development.

The building design was first sketched on a cocktail napkin by architect Howard Elkus during a dinner with the property’s developer, Jon Cronin, and adapted to a $260 million, 22-floor building with 114 residential units.

In the St. Regis, set to open in November, a four-bedroom penthouse will cost $15 million.

The price drops to $2 million for lower one-bedroom units, still sweeping the neighborhood’s $1.8 million median home price, reported by Realtor.com.

The place, St. Regis’s first residential-only establishment, is designed to cocoon permanent residents in the type of living typically reserved for luxury hotel or resort guests — butlers and housekeeping, seaplanes and limousine reservations, many a St. Regis-signature champagne sabrage, and a thorough swaddling of assistance and amenities.

There’ll be a cognac room, walk-out or Juliet balconies over the ocean, a library, a spa, sauna, steam room, pool, jacuzzi, sport simulator, boardroom, grand lounge, guest suites, among the many provisions.

The bottom two floors will be an American bistro-style restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, “nice dining, with a casual touch to it,” said Cathy Angelini, director of sales for the St. Regis in Boston.

“So it’s all-inclusive,” said Angelini. “I don’t think you ever have to really leave the building, and you’ll feel like you’re well taken care of, almost on a vacation, right here.”

Altogether, a company press release said, “one of the most exclusive properties to ever be built in Boston.”

The tower fits right in with the Seaport skyline now, where even just a decade ago it would have been strikingly out of place.

The area, considered Boston’s newest development, was for most of the 20th century fairly barren, traversed mostly by fisherman and sailors along the piers and slowly caked in concrete and parking.dddd

Former Mayor Tom Menino began to change the landscape of the South Boston waterfront, dubbing the area the “Innovation District” in 2010 and bringing in billions in city, state and federal investment to reconstruct the area.

The rapid upscale climb really kicked in through the 2010’s though, with corporate developers’ understanding of the value of waterfront property inside the city.

“22 Liberty was the first one that was a luxury property that kind of brought the Seaport to where it is today,” said Larry Rideout, owner of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty, part of the property’s marketing team. “I think that began the process of developers understanding that there was an opportunity in that marketplace”

Current Seaport housing is among the city’s most expensive, beating out Beacon Hill and Back Bay in median housing price per square foot at $1.8K, according to Realtor.com.

But the area’s growth in height, population and wealth is starting to max out, especially along the waterfront, according to the Boston Planning and Development Agency. The St. Regis is one of the last two residential properties to be completed along the waterfront.

Cronin hit an early wall with the Conservation Law Foundation during planning for the tower. With public access to the waterfront shrinking, Cronin and the group compromised to keep access around the new St. Regis publicly available.

Construction along the Seaport has also faced threats from rising sea levels.

The BPDC organization published Coastal Flood Resilience Design Guidelines in 2019 instructing existing and new constructions to plan for the 40 inches the sea level is predicted to rise by 2070.

Built to exceed the requirements, a St. Regis memo noted, the tower will be “the first building in the Seaport to have an integrated flood barrier system.” This includes a heightened ground floor elevation and components to protect against flooding.

Taking into account the limitations, Rideout said, the Seaport community’s growth will only continue as the remaining waterfront property fills.

“There’s an evolution to the Seaport district that will never really stop,” said Rideout. “There’s so many choices now. Really within the community itself, it’s going to continue to thrive and grow.”