PublicPrivate

Public sqftCITY OF BOSTON 132,960,466MASS PORT AUTHORTY 101,596,835COMMWLTH OF MASS 119,318,130MASS BAY TRANSP AUTH 12,996,613FOREST HILLS CEMETERY 10,677,266

Private46%

Public54%

Land Ownership by Sector

Who Owns Boston? Land ownership, particularly in urban areas, is a complex issue. An individual or organization’s hold-ings may be measured by area or by value, by potential sale price per unit area, or by the age-old adage “location, location, location.”

In Boston, a relatively liberal city where the government is involved in many parts of life, the public sphere’s in�uence is borne out in the man-made landscape. Public entities control 54% of land in Boston - this includes property held by the federal, state, and city gov-ernments. The majority, however, is dispersed across approximately 1000 sub-agencies, from the Department of Parks & Recreation to the MBTA.

Private land ownership is largely residential and commercial, and broken into many small chunks of land. These are much less central-ized in their ownership - there are over 90,000 distinct private owners.

Private sqftTHE GARDENS AT GETHSEMANE IN 6,454,590STERLING SUFFOLK RACECOURSE 4,739,040CSX TRANSPORTATION INC 3,220,620S M LORUSSO & SONS INC 3,064,972NEW GEORGETOWNE LLC 2,659,092

Patrick Mannion - pmannion@college

Top 5 Landholders, by Area

In Boston, the top 5 private landholders combined own just 4.5% of the total area controlled classi�ed as private property. Public property ownership is very decentralized

Meanwhile, the top 5 public landhold-ers own 40.5% of publicallyzoned land. Public land ownership is quite concentrated.

40.5%

4.5%

Private porfolio valueBP PRUCENTER ACQUISITION LLC $727,991,000BP HANCOCK LLC $600,000,000TST 125 HIGH STREET L L C $527,922,500ONE HUNDRED FEDERAL ST LPS $406,502,500LINCOLN STREET PROPERTY $397,894,800

67.6%

3.2%Top 5 Landholders, by Value

Public porfolio valueCITY OF BOSTON $4,920,909,737COMMONWEALTH OF MASS $2,691,427,500NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY $1,322,870,294HARVARD COLLEGE $1,126,550,797BOSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY $695,493,504

The value held by top private land-holders is concentrated in a similar fashion to the land area, with the top 5 holders owning just 3.2% of private land value. Note that none of the largest holding by area reoccur in the top value porfolios.

The public landownership is even more concentrated by value, and many of the same top players from the area-wise assessment are seen again. These �ve control a whopping 67.6% of public land value.

The City of BostonThe city of Boston is the largest landholder both by unit area and by property value. >

< The top 5 private landowners own a much smaller portfo-lio, which in total amounts to just 15% of the City of Boston’s holdings.

Top 5 Private Owners by Value

Top 5 Private Owners by Area

< The top 5 private landowners by value own a tiny portion of Boston’s real estate. As we will see on the next page, this is possible because of the immense proper-ty value concentrat-ed in a relatively small amount of land.

Public land ownership is very concentrated at the top, and is spread over just 1000 owners.

Private land ownership is dispersed across 90,000+ owners, but at the top end of value per square foot, is more expensive space.

Location of Highest Value-per-sqft Property

Location of Highest Cost-Per-Sqft Property

Boston’s most expensive land is concentrated in a relatively small number of properties. The land values range from just a few dollars tonearly $10,000 per square foot, but it all depends on where you want to be. Most of the city’s valuable land is concentrated along the South bank of the Charles River, Down-town, and in the North End.

Though the most valuable portfolios are comprised of public properties, the value per square foot map paints a di�erent picture. Since the map of all property values is so skewed to the right, we focus only on the above-average property prices for a moment. Below, we see that private landowners take the cake in terms of how much you’ll pay to get a space.

> AVG properties; perspective height represents value, in $ / sqft

PublicPrivate

min: $140 / sqft (BOS AVG)

max: $9050 / sqft

-2.5σ > X

-1.5σ < X < -0.5σ

- 0.5σ < X < AVG

AVG < X < 0.5σ

0.5σ < X < 1.5σ

Legend units = $/sqft

X > 1.5σ

min = 0, avg = 140, max = 9050

Land Usage Across Boston

Residential

Commercial

Mixed-use

Non-taxed

Industrial

Legend

Land Usage on Newbury Street

The land use pattern in Boston re�ects a very residential city, with pock-ets of commerical-use properties. These commer-cial properties include everything from stores to o�ce spaces. Their overall square footage is under-stated on this map, howev-er, because of lack of a three-dimensional perspec-tive. The Prudential and Hancock centers, Boston’s two most valuable proper-ties, are mere blips on this map.

The wide swaths of public land are also re�ected on this map, though they are bundled with other non-taxed entities for visual simplicity.

A key takeaway from this map is the division of residential from commeri-cal property in Boston - there is very little mixed- use space.

Of the mixed-use space that does exist, much of it is concentrated along Newbury Street. This stretch is home to some of the most valuable land in Boston, along with the most notable shops for fashion and food a�cio-nados. People’s willing-ness to mix use of space is most likely a result of the cost per sqft, explored on the next map.

DATA SOURCES: ESRI, City of BostonSOFTWARE: ArcMap, ArcScene, Excel, Stata

Property Value - Newbury Street

Property Value and Land Use - Charlestown

-2.5σ > X

-1.5σ < X < -0.5σ

- 0.5σ < X < AVG

AVG < X < 0.5σ

0.5σ < X < 1.5σ

Legend units = $/sqft

X > 1.5σ

min = 75, avg = 790, max = 9050

Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston located in the city’s northermost region. It was infamous for years for being home to the Irish ma�a, which has been the subject of several movies made there. Charlestown has a large residential district in its core, though the quality of this housing is substantially lower than one might �nd along Beacon Street down towards Newbury.

The map below illustrates the land use by color, and the di�erence from the average Boston land cost by perspective height.

The take-away from this graph is that the central region of Charlestown is exceptionally low-cost, which is likely related in some way to the use of this property as residential space. The high end of the land values for this neighborhood are substantially greater than the Boston average of $140 / sqft, but these spaces are controlled either by private commercial entities, or by public and non-taxed entitites. All told, Charlestown is a cheap place to live, but you won’t be much better o� than average if your goal is to set up shop in business.

Boston is a region with immense cultural history, a very involved govern-ment, and a thriving residential population. The mixture of this three elements manifests clearly in maps of land ownership, value and use. The residential territory is vast, the government controls and protects much of the historic land and cultural buildings, and what commercial space is left over is quite expensive. These are the de�ning characteristics of who owns Boston.

Conclusion

min: $1 / sqft

max: $1369 / sqft

Mixed

Non-taxed

Industrial

Residential

Commercial