MASSDEVELOPMENT WAS PREPARING to name a new CEO on Thursday, but now officials say the candidate has withdrawn her name from consideration. State officials say Barbara Kroncke, a partner at McCarter & English in Boston, decided to withdraw her name to deal with illness in her family. Kroncke, a financial backer of Gov. Charlie Baker, […]
Growth and Development
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Union-only deal sent Wynn casino costs soaring
FEW WOULD DOUBT that developer Steve Wynn is a very savvy guy. It turns out, though, he’s getting a lesson in competition and how his own decisions have helped lead to his Everett casino being $300 million over budget. You see, Wynn agreed to a project labor agreement (PLA) for the project, which requires that […]
Posted inPolitics, The Back Story, Transportation
Boston abandons Long Island Bridge
A correction has been added to this story. BOSTON MAYOR MARTY WALSH appears to be backing away from plans to rebuild the bridge to Long Island, partly because of opposition from the city of Quincy and partly because all the homeless and drug treatment services on the island have successfully been relocated to the mainland. […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Millennium marches on
Millennium Partners on Wednesday moved one step closer to building its fourth ultra-luxury project in Boston’s downtown core when the City Council voted 10-3 to seek an exemption from a state law that would have prohibited the new tower from casting shadows on the Boston Common and the Public Garden. If the Legislature goes along […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Shadow vs $: It’s the wrong debate
THE WINTHROP SQUARE DEVELOPMENT proposed by Millennium Partners is not about the shadows on the Public Garden. It’s about the fact that every major development proposal in Boston seems to be a new discussion, as if we’ve never seen such a thing before. And each new development appears to be negotiated in complete isolation, apart […]
Posted inThe Back Story
What’s going on at Millennium Tower?
IT’S ALL A BIT MYSTERIOUS, but a recent real estate transaction at Millennium Tower sheds some light on the financial challenges of catering to the whims of well-to-do condo buyers. According to records at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, 16 units in the ultra-luxury condo building in Downtown Crossing were recently sold for the […]
Posted inEconomy, Education
UMass Amherst investing in innovation
THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST, the flagship campus of the state’s university system, is diving into the innovation economy with a splash they hope will ripple out far beyond the campus, boosting the region’s economic development for decades to come. The university has invested heavily in the initiative in recent years. Well over $100 million […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Downtown Crossing’s renaissance
For those wondering what the turnaround of Downtown Crossing means for the city of Boston, two stories this week in the Boston Globe and CommonWealth magazine provide some perspective. The Globe on Wednesday splashed a column by Thomas Farragher across its front page proclaiming that Downtown Crossing “is back in the show.” Farragher does a […]
Posted inEconomy
The view from $10m up
Research assistance by Michael Malpiede BOSTON’S DOWNTOWN CROSSING has always been a crossroads, a place where subways, streets, and people from all walks of life intersect. Foot traffic tended to be heaviest during the day, with the area emptying out at night after the stores shut down. But that’s starting to change. Emerson College and […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
The dissonance of zoning and immigration
NEWTON RECENTLY BECAME a sanctuary city. I was proud to co-sponsor the ordinance and gratified by the legion of residents who rallied at City Hall in support of their immigrant neighbors. The next night, I listened to some of those same residents decry a request to build housing and retail near the Newtonville commuter rail […]