BCEC expansion | Seaport

Damn right! 93,000 screaming fans at the PONTIAC Silverdome! Bigger than the Rolling Stones.

Maybe many don't realize it's in Pontiac, but rather thought it was a corporate sponsorship. Back then, the corporate sponsorship of sports arenas wasn't like it is today.
 
Equilibria said:
What makes this a white elephant exactly? It's booked up. It allows Boston to compete to host events that Hynes couldn't hold....

...Conventions bring in a windfall in hotel, restaurant and sales taxes, and all those attendees will drive the business case for ground floor retail and restaurants as part of the new Seaport buildings.

If the building was sitting empty, sure it would be a white elephant, but it isn't empty. You may feel it cost too much, but that doesn't make it useless.
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Your windfall has too much wind and not enough fall. To me, it is pretty clear that the downturn from 2008 to 2011 pretty much enforced a large, permanent "reset" in the amount of convention business, with many exhibitors and attendees realizing they could get along without participating.

This chart of Conventions (red) vs GDP (blue) is telling:


In the Great Recession, conventions got "killed". Instead of swinging back into super-growth to "win attendees back" the best conventions have done is claw their way back to growing with the economy. All that area where the red is below the blue is a permanent loss. Conventions, going forward, will be permanently "less of a thing" than they were, and it isn't hard to see why: virtualization of goods being marketed (no need to physically "present" stuff); virtualization of marketing by former exhibitors, hollowing out of middle-staff; Earning "Continuing Education Credits" (seminars at Conventions) is ever-more online too.

Equilibria said:
I've read all about the "race to the bottom" mentality among cities spending lavishly on convention facilities
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So how have you pursaded yourself that it is a good business to be doubling down on a business where capacity expanding at the same time that attendance is falling?
Equilibria said:
but the presence of convention traffic is going to be a big part of what makes the Seaport the Seaport moving forward.
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You need to be making the case that the Seaport is $1.1 Billion dollars *better* at the end of this, not just that conventions are a fact of seaport life. $1.1b of Urban Ring type stuff would probably be a bigger help to Seaport life.
 
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Has anyone ever proposed re-aligning the Red Line to go through the seaport and turn back south at the convention center?
 
Equilibria said:
Exactly. This money can't be used for transit projects anyway. Totally different pots.
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Just because the tax politically popular with locals (in being an indirect tax on hotels and restaurants instead of a direct one) doesn't mean the money is being well spent. And the same state government that has committed $1.1b to the BCEC could change the law to have the taxi/car-rental fees spent on Seaport Transit--it isn't like its in the Constitution.
 
Mongo said:
Has anyone ever proposed re-aligning the Red Line to go through the seaport and turn back south at the convention center?
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It is on fantasy maps, sure, but nobody with any fiscal sense is going to re-route an existing subway. The closest you'd get is the North-South Rail link (no closer than South Station) or improved Silver Line tunnel (connect its halves in Chinatown)
 
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Rail to the Seaport will be half-assed DMU Back Bay-Seaport Shuttle, or someday the Green Line via the connection Arlington alluded to. Red Line will never be routed off of its present trajectory.
 
Arlington said:
Just because the tax politically popular with locals (in being an indirect tax on hotels and restaurants instead of a direct one) doesn't mean the money is being well spent. And the same state government that has committed $1.1b to the BCEC could change the law to have the taxi/car-rental fees spent on Seaport Transit--it isn't like its in the Constitution.
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And all of those hotels that are supporting that tax specifically on the understanding that it will support major convention facility which in turn will support their business will... do what? This simply is not free money. It is limited by statute to funding this, and only this. Without the BCEC, the hotels don't happen, the restaurants don't happen, Seaport Square doesn't happen, and all you're left with is Vertex and a whole bunch of parking lots.

They're doubling down because what they have is working. It makes no damn difference what the industry as a whole is doing. You can look to that as an indicator that convention space is saturated, sure, but if Boston is competing well enough that we need more space, let's build it.

By your logic, Ford should have stopped making cars in 1990 because they now had a bunch of competitors and a bunch of them weren't making money.
 
Equilibria said:
And all of those hotels that are supporting that tax specifically on the understanding that it will support major convention facility which in turn will support their business will... do what? This simply is not free money. It is limited by statute to funding this, and only this. Without the BCEC, the hotels don't happen, the restaurants don't happen, Seaport Square doesn't happen, and all you're left with is Vertex and a whole bunch of parking lots.

They're doubling down because what they have is working. It makes no damn difference what the industry as a whole is doing. You can look to that as an indicator that convention space is saturated, sure, but if Boston is competing well enough that we need more space, let's build it.

By your logic, Ford should have stopped making cars in 1990 because they now had a bunch of competitors and a bunch of them weren't making money.
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How much taxpayers money has been diverted to Seaport? Anybody know the final tally's?

This is what happened in Detroit they kept expanding on Taxpayers money now they want to knock the majority of the city down to centralize the population because they over built garbage with our tax dollars.
The more you build with our tax dollars the more tax dollars it costs the GOVT to service the areas.
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Remember this idiotic thinking

Using Taxpayers funds only makes sense when its for Efficiency for society not building useless bullshit so the Unions can stay busy.

Bridges, Roads and upgradable transit need to be address in the city of Boston and the surrounding communities. This will help the cost of housing and maybe it will start making sense to build more housing in the Seaport.
 
Equilibria said:
And all of those hotels that are supporting that tax specifically on the understanding that it will support major convention facility which in turn will support their business will... do what?
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The BCEC is a tax on use of hotel rooms and rental cars. By compelling higher prices, taxes discourage the use and the supply of hotel rooms and rental cars. A tax on hotel rooms gets you fewer hotels, not more.

The BCEC *says* its going to spend the money on an "attraction" that will drive hotel use. To be a win, it has to attract through conventions more visits than it discourages through higher costs. Is there any evidence that this has happened?

If there is not, then the taxes should go down or go away.

So where are the hard numbers on room-nights?

Filling the BCEC with "day" conventions and boat/auto shows (such as Bayside hosted) may make BCEC look busy, but since they don't attract the (vanishing) business-travel conventioneer, they don't generate enough hotel-stays and car-rentals to justify the tax.

{EDIT: Frankly the BCEC fee on rental cars should be abolished (if it hasn't been) since the BCEC isn't a "rental car" destination. I've sworn off Bost/Camb car rentals since ~1999 because of the crazy fees}
 
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TheRifleman said:
How much taxpayers money has been diverted to Seaport? Anybody know the final tally's?

Bridges, Roads and upgradable transit need to be address in the city of Boston and the surrounding communities. This will help the cost of housing and maybe it will start making sense to build more housing in the Seaport.
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Very, very little. The money being spent in the Seaport is also being generated there, and that includes the entire budget of the BCEC expansion. Want to know where the money to expand the T comes from? Two places: the Federal Government which provides subsidies to States to fund the construction of infrastructure, and the commercial interests comprising the MA sales and corporate tax base. You, as a resident and user of the system, pay virtually nothing for it. These are not "taxpayer dollars", they are corporate investments which are made on the basis of the system serving their business better.

If businesses stop believing that, they will just up and leave, and the city will die. That is what happened to Detroit. Then, all those underserved residents discovered that even their police, fire and ambulance service wasn't something their money was being diverted from - it was something that other people's money was being diverted TO.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is not a bag of coins in your backyard that you can take money out of for anything, and it's not a zero-sum game. Appropriations are made and special taxes levied for all manner of specific purposes. If you think this city is better off with the Seaport being blighted parking lots, then fine (we *all* know what you'd prefer...), but the choice is between this and nothing, not between this and better bus service or an Urban Ring.
 
TheRifleman said:
This is what happened in Detroit they kept expanding on Taxpayers money now they want to knock the majority of the city down to centralize the population because they over built garbage with our tax dollars.
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Detroit expanded to suit its’ population, and then half its’ population left. That is hardly a danger in Boston right now.
 
Detroit and Boston both experienced loss of Urban populations. Detroit just happened to go down by 60% vs. Boston going down by 25% or so. 40 - 50 years later, we are finally increasing our population in the City.

The former Detroit people sprawled and left an empty inner shell (similar to our downtown).

They both started downhill at similar times. Boston just did a better job of maintaining it's existing backbone (education) and was able to grow that into the tech industries we now lead the world in. The corporate build out of the 70's and 80's helped float the local economy for a while, but helped to continue to hollow out our core. This again, is finally being rectified.

Two cities on similar paths, but one diverged and clawed back up and is now doing quite well. The other not so much. It's not that Boston is going to follow the same track as Detroit, because we were already on it, and fixed (some of) it.

Your references to Detroit are written as if this was a recent turn of events in a prospering metropolis. The current sad state of affairs is what you get after 50 - 60 previous years of sadness. Beverly Hills Cop is 30 years old now, Detroit didn't seem too shiny then either.
 
http://www.atkearney.com/research-studies/global-cities-index/full-report

If you check out fig. 2, Boston ranks 21st among the list of global cities, not too shabby for a city of it's size and population though I imagine the authors use the metro Boston area in it's study. Seriously, I think that this more than puts to rest the notion of Boston going the way of Detroit or that she's some second-rate city on the decline. Boston is a first rate, first class global city!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city
 
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The slab of BCEC is such a goddamn shame... why do Convention Centers have to look like such shit? Why can't hotels be above the center itself? Would look so much better as a mini-Prudential Center rather than a 40 acre pancake (once the expansion is done).

At the very least it should be ringed by stuff, retail, restaurants, hotels, etc. As Southie spreads north and the Seaport spreads south those long, blank walls are going to become more and more of a blight. For now, no one cares because most of the BCEC is in no-man's land, but it won't be forever, and they don't seem to be planning for that at all...
 
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SeamusMcFly said:
Beverly Hills Cop is 30 years old now, Detroit didn't seem too shiny then either.
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This statement has all the elements to make it the greatest statement I have ever read on this forum.

Regarding the BECC, how is a building of this ginormous size lacking anything to make this a top convention center? I'm not an expert on convention centers, so excuse my ignorance. And I am totally happy about the expansion and additional hotels.
 
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