GentriWatch: Southie Says ‘No’ to Another Starbucks

Plus, how South Boston condo prices have changed since 2000.

Welcome to GentriWatch, where we look for signs of gentrification happening around the city.


Photo via iStock/bensib

Photo via iStock/bensib

South Boston small business owners scored a venti-sized victory over Starbucks Thursday morning.

The three-member Boston Licensing Board denied developer Michael Norton the common victualer’s license he sought in order to open a Starbucks coffee shop at the corner of L Street and East Broadway, the Globe reports.

Plans for the Starbucks at Southie’s so-called “Caffeine Corner” were met with sharp criticism from local business owners, who felt the Seattle-based coffee giant’s arrival would hurt the neighborhood’s independently owned shops.

Mayor Marty Walsh came out against the proposed Starbucks Tuesday, citing insufficient public support.

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The Starbucks stonewall is a rare resistance to the in a neighborhood that’s hardly been static the last two decades or so.

Despite home prices holding steady in the first quarter of 2016, real estate research site NeighborhoodX has found that condo price ranges in Southie are at historic highs, study, Curbed reports.

In April, the average, market-rate condo sales price in South Boston was $577 per square foot. That’s a 155-percent increase from 2000. The lower end of the price range was $344 per square foot, up from $172 just four years ago.

Despite the recent upswing, the priciest deal NeighborhoodX’s analysis found in the last 15 years was a unit at 9 West Broadway, which sold for $1,039—a decade ago.

It almost makes you miss the early 2000s. Almost.

Notice something changing in your neighborhood? Let me know: kclauss@bostonmagazine.com, @KyleClauss.