Boston 2024

If the "40,000 units will be built" idea was realistic we'd have 10,000 units in the Seaport today, 15 years after promised. Instead we have fewer than 2,000.
 
JohnAKeith said:
If the "40,000 units will be built" idea was realistic we'd have 10,000 units in the Seaport today, 15 years after promised. Instead we have fewer than 2,000.
Click to expand...

My whole thesis statement about 40,000 units on this site after the Olympics would only work if policies allow for it. Currently, development policies in the City of Boston suck.

I got to interview a former director of planning (who shall remain unnamed) for a school project just weeks before the City cut him loose, and he candidly admitted that the City keeps their zoning code archaic. Specifically, here is the anecdote:

I think it’s fair to say that the zoning code is deliberately kept archaic. The reason for that is that we didn’t update it. Whenever you update zoning, you’re generally increasing zoning. You’re giving all the value to the landowners. Because the city and its citizens are so involved, there was always a need to**extract isn’t the right word**to make sure the private developers provide the right kinds of benefits beyond their profit* centric approach to building anything.

In order to get the exemption and variances from an archaic zoning code, we would be able to leverage the kinds of community benefits that people [from City Hall] deal with on the front lines.

“Hey, the local neighborhoods want an improved park. The local youth soccer league needs uniforms.” All of this is being extracted from private developers only because they are seeking variances. They’ll go before the zoning board of appeals and pledge that they are doing X, Y, and Z to provide community benefits. There is an agreement that this works.
Click to expand...

This attitude toward development is a main reason it's become so expensive to live here. Additionally, the archaic approval processes are why we only get 2,000 new units instead of 10,000 in an area ready for them. However, the City's choice to take a different/new approach to planning in the foreseeable future leaves me optimistic about the potential for the highest-and-best-use suggestion I made (i.e. 40,000 units).

Also, SeamusMcFly, thank you for sharing that tax information ($200 million at full buildout). That sounds pretty substantial.
 
There wouldn't be "developers" if there was simply by-right zoning regulation that worked. There would just be "builders" or construction companies. The current system works as a barrier to entry for competition which works in favor of established developers, so there is plenty of blame to go around on all sides. Also, lawyers would (and maybe do) astro-turf community opposition if it doesn't naturally exist because that is how they make a living. Half the system is a shakedown.
 
Sacre bleu!

latest
 
I guess we'll find out which restaurants saved their "Freedom Fries" menu signs from 12 years ago.
 
Don't know how Boston can hope to compete with these European bids. Boston has been chosen for about half a year now and there is no signs of any sort of true Olympic legacy. I suppose that the new plan could surprise but I have my doubts.
 
Boston competes because NBC wants the Olympics to be in the United States, and NO ONE gives the IOC more money than NBC.

That, and there's a feeling that Chicago was screwed last time around.
 
It's GG for Boston 2014. Boston 2024 looked hopeful when it was looking other bids were hesitating at recent costs. Combined with the length of time since the last Olympics in NA, USOC reforms since Chicago, and desire for NBC money, it looked possible for Boston to take on this on Boston's terms.

Now with Paris whom had multiple bids and better positioning, the only chance Boston has is if somehow we show that we can want it more. That means doing it on the IOC's terms. That means everything what the NOlympics fears and it means even if we win, we lose.

The only chance I can see we can have an Olympics and have it on our terms, if they really want NBC money that badly. I am not seeing that.
 
Hard to rate, without knowing where the Olympic Village would be.
 
Paris already firm favourite in race for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics
By David Owen Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Paris has been installed as firm favourite in the race to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Within hours of the French capital’s declaration on Tuesday that it intends to make its fourth Summer Games bid of recent times, bookmaker William Hill had made the city 5/4 favourite to host the event, ahead of the current United States candidate, Boston, at 9/4.

In acknowledgement of doubts over the New England city’s ability to last the course, however, the bookmaker is also offering prices on three other US cities, with Los Angeles fifth-favourite at 8/1, Washington D.C at 16/1 and San Francisco the outsider at 20/1.
Click to expand...
 
Boston 2024 needs build a waterfront stadium to have a shot at this.
 
datadyne007 said:
Lowell for fencing & tae kwan do:
Click to expand...

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. Worcester has been announced for.... HANDBALL!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...l-worcester/GXDuJqOpEIjX0r4rnQDTIL/story.html

I'm all for spreading out venues where it makes sense. Boxing in Lowell made sense. Sailing at Buzzard's Bay and whitewater on the Deerfield River makes sense. Sprinkling out prelim basketball and volleyball in Springfield and Holyoke, respectively, would make sense.

But handball in Worcester? Tae kwan do and fencing in Lowell? These smaller scale events are better off clustered in Boston, and have nothing to do with their new proposed locations. The bid is desperate, it shows, and it's killing any chance it might have had against Paris et al.
 
lexicon506 said:
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. Worcester has been announced for.... HANDBALL!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...l-worcester/GXDuJqOpEIjX0r4rnQDTIL/story.html

I'm all for spreading out venues where it makes sense. Boxing in Lowell made sense. Sailing at Buzzard's Bay and whitewater on the Deerfield River makes sense. Sprinkling out prelim basketball and volleyball in Springfield and Holyoke, respectively, would make sense.

But handball in Worcester? Tae kwan do and fencing in Lowell? These smaller scale events are better off clustered in Boston, and have nothing to do with their new proposed locations. The bid is desperate, it shows, and it's killing any chance it might have had against Paris et al.
Click to expand...

That one's pretty problematic for me. Handball is not a nothing sport. For several European countries, it's as big as Baseball is here. Relegating it to Worcester, which might as well be located on the moon if you're not from here and staying in Boston, is not a good look.

The big thing that Paris has going for it: It's located in Ile de France. Its departement (the administrative unit at the same level as a state, though it's much different functionally) includes pretty much only its metro area. That removes the requirement to spread things out to gain widespread support. If Massachusetts ended at I-495, the reality of doing this would be very different (or, for that matter, if Boston were in a state with multiple metro areas, like California). Massachusetts is both too big and too small to do this right.

What this says to me is that Boston 2024 has completely abandoned the BCEC (Handball, Tae Kwon Do, Wrestling, Fencing, etc. are all sports typically hosted in convention centers). That's very worrisome. The BCEC is one of the city's key assets in terms of hosting any event, and wiping it from the bid indicates that Charlie Baker probably locked them out of it. Note that no venue so far has been a Commonwealth facility or location, which might indicate that Boston 2024 has been made unwelcome in any state-owned venue. If so, Baker may well have killed the bid.
 
lexicon506 said:
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. Worcester has been announced for.... HANDBALL!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...l-worcester/GXDuJqOpEIjX0r4rnQDTIL/story.html

I'm all for spreading out venues where it makes sense. Boxing in Lowell made sense. Sailing at Buzzard's Bay and whitewater on the Deerfield River makes sense. Sprinkling out prelim basketball and volleyball in Springfield and Holyoke, respectively, would make sense.

But handball in Worcester? Tae kwan do and fencing in Lowell? These smaller scale events are better off clustered in Boston, and have nothing to do with their new proposed locations. The bid is desperate, it shows, and it's killing any chance it might have had against Paris et al.
Click to expand...

I agree.

"Shore up statewide support?"

Relocating events tailor-made for one of several modern college arenas in easy travel distance because they've got to pump up support in other counties/districts is a sign of desperation, not diversification. You don't need a 13,000 seat arena for handball. I'm pretty sure the IOC isn't mandating minimum seating capacities of >10K for tertiary-or-lower events when Conte Forum's 8600 seats, Agganis Arena's 7200 seats, and Matthews Arena's 6000 seats are in the mix. To go along with other temporary venues that need not be set up exactly like a conventional pro or college hockey/basketball or concert arena to hold such events.

Second, "Boston" Olympics starts getting very tenuous a designation once you start packing outside-495 with events for political expediency. It's one thing if, like Buzzards Bay or the inland woods of Billerica, it's simply the best site suited to task and you'd be doing the event itself a disservice fitting square pegs in Boston. It's another thing where you have no choice but to start compromising out to second- and third- choices to give every county and legislative district a slice of the pie. It's Worcester and Lowell today...Springfield tomorrow. And if these political compromises are happening one-by-one, it's dilution of focus from a unifying strategy. The "Massachusetts" Olympics becomes a bundle of compromises, not an integrated plan.


At the very least they've got to explain a whole lot better why this somehow supports the integrated Boston plan. Because it sure isn't coming off that way. It's coming off like the integration is fraying at the edges and starting to succumb to too-many-chefs syndrome as the 495'er and beyond-495'er power brokers start getting pushed into the mix.
 
The question for me is this: Can we kill this bid now if they come out with something next week that's as embarrassing as this announcement? I don't want to sit through two years of buildup about something we're never going to win. Don't get me wrong: The idea of this is good and it excites me. Boston could have beaten Paris, with a good plan. Putting core events in the boonies is not a good plan. I'm not looking forward to two years of "I back the bid" stickers and debates only to be told in 2017 that, indeed, the glamour of consolidated events in Paris beats the f_ing DCU Center.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top