whighlander
Senior Member
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- Aug 14, 2006
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I think I agree with a lot of the above. Public subsidized convention centers make about as much sense as public subsidies for sports stadiums... meaning they don't make sense economically. At best they break even sometimes and can bring in a little money from outside the region, or at least prevent a little money from leaving.
Since there has already been a public investment, however, I don't think the state should be selling public property for pennies on the dollar just because it may have been a bad decision decades ago.
The state should be maximizing the benefits to the public of BCEC (and Hynes). That means short and long term economic impact, jobs, lowering taxation, trying for a net positive inflow of convention dollars. Or selling real estate if the math actually makes sense in the short and long term.
Tangent, neither your or Curcuas's comments really make any sense [although your comments are more logical] -- to some extent you are both trying to re-litigate the past decision to build the BCEC and to some extent you are using generic arguments when the situation is unique to Boston
Here are the issues and how the Convention Center Authority has analyzed them [my prioritization]:
- Hynes is going to be sold -- so there are likely to be more opportunities for the BCEC to be busy
- Hynes has surrounding it many hotel rooms in a cluster
- quite a few [2500+] connected by weather protected means: [Westin [700], Marriott [800], Sheraton [1200]
- If you can't easily get the people to/from the Back Bay except by fleets of buses -- then the BCEC needs hotels which are easily accessible -- and more rooms because of its much larger scale
- Hence the goal mentioned in the story of 5,000 easily accessible rooms
- so far the BCEC has the Westin [800]
- with Omni [1200 with underground tunnel under construction]
- + Seaport Hotel, Yotell and a couple of other smaller hotels within a 5 to 10 minute walk
- above -- collectively about 3,000 rooms
- Hence the need to create a way to get about 2,000 more hotel rooms within that magic circle
- D St is a good starting point
- That massive parking lot for the Post Office is another good target [not part of the Authority's argument]
- The only remaining questions
- how to do it in a reasonable time frame commensurate with the proposed BCEC expansion
- how much if any the public should contribute to the process
- here -- I completely agree with you and Charlie -- no more Net public money should be spent
- Sell the Hynes -- that should be unloaded from the public assets to allow complete freedom of development to expand the Pru complex
- taking maximum advantage of the abundance of connected hotel rooms
- and thousands of connected parking spaces --
- perhaps a major performing arts center with an attached office / residence tower
- Buy the P.O. and the P.O.'s Parking Lot
- use the P.O. land to Develop the expanded South Station
- license the land not needed by South Station expansion to developers -- let it be developed aggressively over the next decade
- use some of the land to improve the public realm along the Boston proper side of the Fort Point Channel and a re-opened Dorchester Ave -- a major arterial connector along with A Street and D Street
- Most of the P.O's Parking lot can be licensed to developers to expand the soon to be booming extended Seaport on the other side of Summer St. into the GE / Gillette Area
- Finally as part of the deal acquire some new land for a compact and efficient P.O.
- perhaps in the old industrial area along Dorchester Ave. as there is no real benefit to having the P.O. next to a train station -- it does however need a good a quick access to Logan and local highways
My humble suggestion for ABf's interested in this topic --- that in addition to looking at Google Maps and an occasional read of the Boston Business Journal -- Perhaps even a walk-about -- such as circumnavigating the BCEC or walking from the BCEC down past GE and Gillette to Broadway T Station
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