Boston, 2020
By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist | December 20, 2006
Ed Logue and Steve Coyle were by far the most independent directors in the half-century history of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. In fact, Logue was more powerful than the mayor he served, John Collins, his pervasive influence a function of his ability to attract federal urban renewal money at a time when Boston needed it most. Coyle had the good fortune to run the place at a time of a building boom and work for a mayor, Ray Flynn, who didn't have strong opinions about development.
Our next BRA director, like our out-going BRA director, will not have the independence Logue and Coyle enjoyed, not as long as our Mayor for Life, Tom Menino, is in charge. But more than at any time in decades, Boston needs a strong hand at the BRA, the city's planning and economic development agency. That is because in the next 10 years, Boston could be poised for its greatest building boom in history.
The man -- or woman -- running the BRA will have a lot to say about how that building boom unfolds.
While we haven't started a downtown office tower in years, all the pieces are in place for a renewed boom. The office vacancy rate has fallen, and office rents have risen. The Big Dig has left behind huge opportunities in the Seaport District and along the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Harvard is building a new campus in Allston and the city's wealth of nonprofits -- from the universities to the hospitals to institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts -- are in the middle of a huge building cycle. Developers are quietly assembling parcels all over the city.
MFL got exactly what he wanted in Mark Maloney, who loyally, if uncritically, carried Menino's water for seven years at the BRA. Maloney focused his efforts on what he knows and cares most about, affordable housing. More housing is a good (even critical) thing, of course, but Maloney has not been the guy who could stand up and articulate a vision for Boston. He hasn't even been the go-to guy for developers, who know that person remains Paul McCann, the agency's longtime Mr. Inside.
The early betting is that MFL will look outside the BRA for a new director, just as he has for the new heads of police, education, and public works. The mantra in MFL's fourth term is new blood, new ideas. The inside candidates are Menino favorite Kairos Shen, the well-respected planning director who recently dropped out of the running for the top planning job in San Francisco, a plum of an assignment, and Tom Miller, the BRA's economic development director.
Whoever MFL eventually chooses needs to think as big as the opportunity before him (or her). For instance, if life sciences is the future, Boston has a huge stake in moving forward on the long-discussed Urban Ring to provide a transportation link for the bursting-at-the-seams Longwood Medical Area, Boston University, and Harvard's Allston campus, the natural home for a new generation of expansion of Boston's medical complex. Also on my to-do list: retail and housing for the Seaport, relocating a major city or state agency in Dudley Square, and more affordable housing.
A BRA director needs to inspire us about planning and make the city more business friendly to attract jobs and retain our college graduates. It is a difficult balance: Whether from here or elsewhere, he or she has to understand what distinguishes Boston from every other city, and shove us into the 21st century. We aren't Houston, and don't aspire to be.
Headline-grabbing ideas like a 1,000-foot tower and moving City Hall to Oshkosh don't make for a vision. MFL needs to take a lesson from his predecessor: As mayor, Collins hired Logue, and asked only that he never be surprised. MFL would be wise to find his own Ed Logue, and then allow him to do his job.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.
