Tower plan draws players: Belkin creating crack project team
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Sports team owner and credit card magnate Steve Belkin is emerging as a force to be reckoned with in the budding competition to build Boston?s tallest skyscraper.
Belkin is assembling a crack development and architectural team that includes one of Boston?s top real estate executives, former Fan Pier project leader Dan O?Connell.
Head of the TransNational credit-card and travel empire and owner of the Atlanta Hawks, Belkin has a key advantage: He owns a Federal Street midrise that abuts the city-owned garage just off Winthrop Square in Boston?s Financial District, where the skyscraper would be built. The Weston business executive has also been interested in building a major tower on the site for years, local real estate executives say.
Belkin recently hired Bovis Construction and local architecture firm CBT. He is also in the hunt for internationally known design firms and is in talks with two big-name architects, Renzo Piano and Somerville-based Moshe Safdie, executives said. Safdie is currently working on the Boston Museum project for the Rose Kennedy Greenway and Piano?s present projects include The New York Times Tower in Manhattan..
?What I have heard in the marketplace is that there is a sense that Steve has the inside track,? said one executive.
The jockeying comes as City Hall?s development arm prepares to take potential bidders today on a tour of the downtown lot and garage proposed for the big tower project. Mayor Thomas M. Menino has called for bids from builders interested in putting up a 1,000-foot skyrise that would be the tallest tower on the Hub?s skyline.
Still, Belkin is hardly the only player to watch in the tower competition.
Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust, which owns an office high-rise next door on Federal Street, also holds an inside advantage.
But Equity is also considering selling its adjacent building at 75-101 Federal St.
Other major real estate players that have expressed at least preliminary interest include: Beacon Capital Partners, which is preparing to sell the 60-story Hancock Tower; Boston Properties, owner of the Prudential Center; Texas-based Hines, which has proposed a tower over South Station; and Gale International, headed by influential Boston developer John Hynes.
Robert Epstein, head of the major Boston development firm Abbey Group, has opted not to bid, as he prepares to break ground on a new, 32-story condo tower on Province Street.
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