It's time to make up a bunch of awards and hand them out to the good, the bad and the ugly in the Greater Boston real estate universe. Yep, it's the fifth annual Curbed Boston Awards, y'all!
There were many, many big-time apartment-building openings in Boston in 2015, yet that is nothing new in the city's booming age of residential development. What was particularly surprising to see this year was a sharp, unmistakable rise in hotel construction and planning. It seemed like every developer and brand that matters wanted to check inn with Boston in 2015.
Around 4,200 hotel rooms, either new or majorly refurbished, are expected to have opened in Boston from mid-2015 through mid-2017. These include recent arrivals such as the 242-room Godfrey in Downtown Crossing and the 96-room addition to the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore as well as future lodges such as the 175-room hotel that's part of Brighton's Boston Landing and the 211 Four Seasons rooms expected to go inside One Dalton Street in western Back Bay. It seemed not two weeks went by this year without the announcement or the opening of a new Boston hotel. And, if debuts were ever in short supply, then news of epic hotel trades filled the vacuum: 2015 has proved an epic year for sales of hotels in the city, including Hilton's $140,000,000 bid for the Mandarin Oriental's hospitality portion and a German investment group's $174,000,000 buy of the aforementioned Godfrey. Wowza.
· Our Updated Map of the Many New Hotels Going Up in Boston [Curbed Boston]
· The Biggest Greater Boston Apartment Openings in 2015 [Curbed Boston]
· New Hotel Commonwealth Wing Banks on Red Sox Appeal [Curbed Boston]
· Hilton's Mandarin Oriental Bid Could Set Boston Hotel Record [Curbed Boston]
· Record Prices Prove Boston Hotels Certainly Inn Demand [Curbed Boston]
· Exclusive Tour of Downtown Crossing's New Godfrey Hotel [Curbed Boston]
· Our Curbed Awards '15 archive [Curbed Boston]