Fan Pier Developments | Seaport

[whighlander]

It's amazing how a few Billion$ of potential can unlock the kinetics

All we need are one or two more "Vertices" and things will start to return to normal

 

[TheRifleman]

-Cubed: Risky business for taxpayers
by Shirley Kressel
contributing writer
Wednesday Jul 20, 2011

After Fidelity and Evergreen Solar cut jobs despite huge state "job creation" subsidies, and the City of Boston got slammed in its loan to the soon-to-be bankrupt W Hotel, you would think that corporations sniffing at the public trough would be sent packing.

But no, it’s business as usual - and worse! The latest boondoggle involves Big Pharma, a big developer, and a new kind of subsidy that plays games with taxpayer money.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals, with facilities scattered around Cambridge, just got a new drug approved and decided to consolidate and expand their buildings. The Boston Waterfront offers the most suitable location for its needs, so Vertex decided to move its entire operation, with its current workforce of 1,240 employees, into two Fan Pier buildings. The buildings will be constructed by Joe Fallon, mega-developer friend of Mayor Thomas Menino.

Fallon’s waterfront developments have all been subsidized with huge tax breaks, and he hit an even bigger jackpot here.

Governor Deval Patrick, lesson apparently not learned from past experience with Mass Life Sciences Center’s the poor job-creation record, forked over a $10 million Life Sciences tax credit.

Based on the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s declaration that the project area, which the Globe calls a "luxurious new neighborhood," is officially "blighted," Menino granted the project a $12 million property tax waiver. As revealed at the project’s City Council hearing on May 20, Vertex didn’t want to pay rent on both Cambridge and Boston leases while it was moving over -- so this tax break is being given to cover Fallon’s transition-period rent.

Most important, Patrick and Menino teamed up to offer Fallon $50 million dollars via an as-yet-untested and little-understood type of subsidy: the state Infrastructure Investment Incentive (or I-Cubed) program. I-Cubed was Menino’s 2006 legislative initiative that allowed the city to shift more of the costs of development subsidies to the state.

Under I-Cubed, the state issues bonds that pay for project infrastructure. To pay off that loan, the state uses future income tax revenues from new project employees; the state also uses project-related state sales taxes. So instead of those taxes going to the general fund for schools, roads, libraries, etc., they go to paying off a developer’s loan. However, if a project fails to generate enough state tax revenues to pay back the loan, I-Cubed then requires the city to provide the money. The city can demand that the developer keep a two-year reserve fund, and after that an assessment can be placed on the property for reimbursement

But if the project fails, the developer is unlikely to pony up the money, and a lien is not a timely or dependable recovery mechanism.

In the end, the state can hold the city responsible by withholding local aid to cover the debt.
In this first I-Cubed project to be implemented with Vertex, though, Menino and Patrick have colluded to shift the funding risk from the taxpayers of Boston to the taxpayers of Massachusetts.

Based on the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s declaration that the project area, which the Globe calls a "luxurious new neighborhood," is officially "blighted," Menino granted the project a $12 million property tax waiver.Here’s how and why:

Vertex officials testified that they plan to hire only 200 workers when they move to Boston; they said they anticipate 300 more hires over the following several years. The City expressed confidence that these new workers’ income taxes and project-related state sales taxes will amply cover the debt, at about $3.3 million a year, totaling $99 million over the 30-year loan period. But obviously, officials see a substantial risk that this revenue won’t be enough, because the plan is to also tap into state income taxes generated by Vertex’s existing 1,240 employees.

This is a problem; I-Cubed cannot legally be applied to existing jobs.

The point of I-Cubed is to create jobs that produce new, not existing, income tax revenues to pay off the bonds. That is, unless there is "compelling evidence" that a company like Vertex would leave the state without the subsidy. Then, and only then, can the City and state consider existing jobs as "retained" jobs, whose taxes may be used for bond service.

Sure enough, at the City Council hearing, a representative from the Municipal Research Bureau briefly mentioned Rhode Island had courted Vertex.

However, Vertex executives, at the same hearing, testified that the Boston Waterfront site is uniquely ideal, with ample space for an expansion campus near workforce sources, synergistic life-science clusters, excellent transportation options, and life-style amenities for employees--culture, restaurants, and retail. Fallon testified similarly, pointing out the public investments, like the Big Dig, that made this site so desirable for Vertex. City Councilor Mike Ross said, "Where else can you get over a million square feet in an urban setting? That’s what’s attractive."

Think about it: would high-tech Vertex leave the brain bank of the world to go to Rhode Island? Of course not, just as JPMorgan Chase, which got a $4 million subsidy, wouldn’t really have moved to Braintree as threatened, and Liberty Mutual, which got a $46.5 million subsidy, wouldn’t really have moved to some hamlet in New Hampshire as threatened.

A quick Google search (here, here and here) would have informed our officials - if they really wanted to know -- that Rhode Island’s biotech labor force, the top criterion, is woefully deficient for Vertex’s needs.

Nonetheless, we can be sure that our officials will find "compelling evidence" that Vertex would have moved to Rhode Island if they did not get this I-Cubed assistance from taxpayers. It won’t be the first time the Governor has cooked the books to boost a corporate subsidy.

Patrick, Menino and City Council are subverting the law to give these corporations over $120 million for no reason -- other than to claim false credit for job creation. Slashing services for both state and city taxpayers is apparently their idea of shared sacrifice.




Shirley Kressel is a landscape architect and urban designer, and one of the founders of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods. She can be reached at Shirley.Kressel@verizon.net.


http://www.mysouthend.com/index.php?ch=columnists&sc=city_streets&id=122458

 

[whighlander]

SK -- predictable and totally ignorant of the modern world -- the competition is not Rhode Island -- but London and Singapore

Novartis looked globally before settling on Cambridge -- I'm willing to bet that a few hundred local jobs in Cambridge were created by Novartis picking the old NECO Bldg as its hub of its global research

Vertex will attract other entrepreneurial firms to the Innovation District -- in 10 years it could be a mini-Kendal

 

[briv]

Vertex will attract other entrepreneurial firms to the Innovation District -- in 10 years it could be a mini-Kendal

You say this as if it's a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if you've actually ever been to any of the places you post about.

Also, what's with all the animosity towards Shirley Kressel? She's not the raving kook that some people here portray her as. I've had several conversations with her and found her to be a friendly and intelligent woman. I think one can disagree with her without resorting to personal insults and snide insinuations.

She used to post on this board. Considering all the cheap shots taken at her from some members here it's really no surprise that she doesn't anymore.

 

[TheRifleman]

You say this as if it's a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if you've actually ever been to any of the places you post about.

Also, what's with all the animosity towards Shirley Kressel? She's not the raving kook that some people here portray her as. I've had several conversations with her and found her to be a friendly and intelligent woman. I think one can disagree with her without resorting to personal insults and snide insinuations.

She used to post on this board. Considering all the cheap shots taken at her from some members here it's really no surprise that she doesn't anymore.

I agree with Shirley Kressel 100%. The modern world!!! Is that the excuse people have to post to justify to get something built or stay in business these days?

Not one project right now is being built with just private money (risk and reward)......It’s all on the taxpayers shoulders and the reward is 100% for the private company and his political connected friends.

Sorry it's like our Govt Regulators are best friends with the company's they should be policing. The fox is watching the Hen House in every industry.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Often verbose, she is often accurate.

 

[BostonYoureMyHome]

I agree with Shirley Kressel 100%. The modern world!!! Is that the excuse people have to post to justify to get something built or stay in business these days?

Not one project right now is being built with just private money (risk and reward)......It’s all on the taxpayers shoulders and the reward is 100% for the private company and his political connected friends.

Sorry it's like our Govt Regulators are best friends with the company's they should be policing. The fox is watching the Hen House in every industry.

Case and point, big banks and bailouts. Look how that is ending up.

 

[Beton Brut]

Also, what's with all the animosity towards Shirley Kressel? She's not the raving kook that some people here portray her as. I've had several conversations with her and found her to be a friendly and intelligent woman.

She used to post on this board. Considering all the cheap shots taken at her from some members here it's really no surprise that she doesn't anymore.

+1

I recall a really thought-provoking conversation with her and briv on the steps of City Hall during the efforts to landmark the Arlington Building. I don't always agree with Shirley's ideas or tactics, but I find dissenting opinions enrich our thinking. This board was more interesting with her as a poster.

 

[Sicilian]

Also, what's with all the animosity towards Shirley Kressel? She's not the raving kook that some people here portray her as. I've had several conversations with her and found her to be a friendly and intelligent woman. I think one can disagree with her without resorting to personal insults and snide insinuations.

She used to post on this board. Considering all the cheap shots taken at her from some members here it's really no surprise that she doesn't anymore.

+1

The planners at City Hall have done a great job marginalizing Kressel in the media. Like her or not, she's quite smart, diligent and often fairly courageous.

 

[stellarfun]

SK is more than a bit of a hypocrite. Her husband works for a Boston teaching hospital.

In 2010, the U.S. taxpayers funneled $1.731 billion to Boston hospitals and medical schools (mostly to the hospitals). This was for research, not for Medicare reimbursement. Boston received nearly $600 million more than New York City, and $1.2 billion more than San Francisco.

The taxpayers of this country have paid for Longwood, Kendall, and the other concentrations of life sciences research in Greater Boston. Vertex wouldn't be building on Fan Pier, or leaving Kendall if the U.S. taxpayer for decades had not been funding all this medical research in Boston.

So enough already with the hypocrisy, and sanctimonious pronouncements.

 

[Sicilian]

Not sure I get your point.

SK's husband's occupation has nothing to do with the discusssion.

The article points out how the City uses a blighted designation on the most valuable parcels for eminent domain and tax breaks. It points out that Mayor Menino's friend is a beneficiary of the $12m tax break, despite media accounts that Vertex (and the City) were the primary beneficiaries. And the article raises questions about tax breaks that subsidize development in areas that are far from marginal.

Sanctimonious? How so?

 

[stellarfun]

Not sure I get your point.

SK's husband's occupation has nothing to do with the discusssion.

The article points out how the City uses a blighted designation on the most valuable parcels for eminent domain and tax breaks. It points out that Mayor Menino's friend is a beneficiary of the $12m tax break, despite media accounts that Vertex (and the City) were the primary beneficiaries. And the article raises questions about tax breaks that subsidize development in areas that are far from marginal.

Sanctimonious? How so?

SK created a straw man with her reference to RI. But there certainly are other cities which would be willing to get a company like Vertex and a billion dollar laboratory.

San Francisco is spending $300 million on infrastructure for Mission Bay, and to lure and keep companies, e.g., Twitter, waives city payroll tax on employees.

Philadelphia, "Tax Credits Fuel Philly Homewood Suites Project" This is a horrible looking hotel near the University of Pennsylvania's Medical Campus.
http://lhonline.com/development/financing/klehr_philly_homewood_0211/

_________________________
95 percent of the people on this board complain with great frequency and some validity about how hard it is to develop projects in Boston, the regulations, the NIMBYs, the genuflection before the Mayor, etc etc. And one of the more onerous requirements, IMO, are the linkage payments. well-intentioned certainly, but a developer basically has to bribe his or her way into getting city approval by sweetening the pot. And I suspect SK, because of her association with the neighborhoods, is a champion of linkage.

The major economic engine for Greater Boston at the moment is health care and medical research. Ever since 1994, Boston has annually received more Federal funding for medical research than any other city of America. So I don't begrudge a governor, or mayor, or city manager, sweetening the pot to keep Big Pharma in Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, etc. Most other major cities in this country would love to siphon off some of Boston's research dollars and some of its bioscience companies, and would be more than eager to sweeten the pot to get them. After all, Boston is unique only in the amount of money it gets.

Her husband's teaching hospital just happened to defraud the Federal government several years back, and had to pay millions in fines. That was cheap compared to a penalty making them ineligible to receive future Federal grants for a period of time. (To be clear, SK's husband was not involved, only his employer and a few hospital employees.)

 

[whighlander]

You say this as if it's a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if you've actually ever been to any of the places you post about.

Also, what's with all the animosity towards Shirley Kressel? She's not the raving kook that some people here portray her as. I've had several conversations with her and found her to be a friendly and intelligent woman. I think one can disagree with her without resorting to personal insults and snide insinuations.

She used to post on this board. Considering all the cheap shots taken at her from some members here it's really no surprise that she doesn't anymore.

Briv Consider exhibit 1:

from Ms. Kressel " After Fidelity and Evergreen Solar cut jobs despite huge state "job creation" subsidies, "

this statement is lumping the proverbial paint with the orange juice and putting both in the refrigerator -- Fidelity is an institution in Boston much like the MFA or the BSO -- but unlike them it can and has expanded in Dallas TX and Cincinnati OH as well as RI and NH -- it could also pick-up and move (with some legal effort to restructure the original Massachusetts Business Trust) if the Commonwealth and Boston is too inhospitable a place to do business.


Evergreen Solar was a politically motivated state capitalism project -- ill thought out and ill planned -- without the deal with the state based on the Green Energy fund (derived from skimming off everyone's Electric Bill) -- no VC would have touched the company -- without the deal with the state for the factory at Devens -- no Investment Banker would have been involved -- the company was doomed from the beginning -- there was a total lack of due diligence on the part of the Commonwealth's Capitalists ostensibly working on our behalf --- if someone wanted to support the semiconductor manufacturing in Massachusetts -- it should have been to help Intel stay and expand in Hudson where the private sector had already invested over 1B$

As far as I can tell -- Ms. Kressel is quick to criticize -- slow to commend and I'm not sure that she's ever actually contributed something in her professed professions

On the other hand, like politics and history, this is a hobby for me -- I don't pretend to be an architect, landscape designer or city planner by formal training, apprenticeship or even having a degree conferred upon me. However, i lie walking around cities looking at buildings and city districts and trying to understand how various things came about and what might be done to improve things.

a partial list of cities over the past 30+ years which I've visited mostly on business related to technology:
North America:
Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Niagara falls, Schenectady, Uttica, Springfield,
San Francisco, San Jose, LA & valley, Santa Monica, San Diego, Lajolla, Ventur, Santa Barbara, Goletta, Anaheim, Riverside, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Louisville, Cincinnati,
Denver, Colorado springs, Phoenix, salt lake City, Provo, Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Albuquerque
El Paso, Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, McAllen, Corpus Christi
some places in baja and the rest of Mexico
Vickburg, Huntsville, Shreveport, New Orleans, Lafayette, St. Pete, Orlando, west Palm Beach, Miami
Atlanta, some places in W. Va, Newport and some places in Va, Charlotte, Winston Salem, Raleigh, Memphis, Nashville, Oak Ridge, Gattlingburg, DC, Baltimore and some place in MD., several places in NJ, NYC, Westchester, Yorktown Heights, several places in CT & RI

In Europe:
Paris, London, Oxford, York, Cambridge (the other one), Berlin, Munich, Frankfort, Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Potsdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Madrid, Warsaw, Krakow, Zakopane ( on vacation), Gdansk, Katowice, Chorzow, Czestochowa, Oświęcim (Auschwitz),

In Asia:
Almaty (formerly Alma Atta Kazakhstan), Dubai, Jinan, Qingdao, Zibo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Singapore, Johor Malaysia, Seoul, Tokyo

There are others -- but this just a list from the top of my head spending about 10 minutes (mostly checking obscure spelling)

Note that this makes me any kind of expert -- just someone who has seen other places in various stages of development or lack there-of and with various types of historic backgrounds

 

[Sicilian]

^stellarfun

Let's put the stuff about SK's husband aside. Frankly, it seems like a stretch.

I've followed the work of Kressel for the past 15 years. She's raised the issue of linkage as extortion and I don't think you'll find any reference or quote that demonstrates otherwise.

Kressel has registered distaste for progress in development, particularly in my area of interest -- the Seaport. Her main point, made often to construction workers, is that they would be quite busy if we had a real planning department, not a political public relations department. Her basic premise is that once an area is "master planned" it should be immediately zoned and the developers should be allowed to proceed as of right. No horse trading, no politics, no linkage.

I'm not quoting SK, I'm relaying a very close knowledge of what she stands for. Unfortunately, because her views are strident and she's opposed what she considers mediocre approvals, she is marginalized as a NIMBY obstructionist. I dare say she is pretty close to Boston's version of a Jane Jacobs.

Not everyone was a fan of Jane Jacobs either.

 

[JohnAKeith]

To quote my hero, Michael Dukakis, "Any jackass can knock down a barn, it takes a carpenter to build one."

Get off your asses and do something rather than complain about others getting all the good ink!

 

[whighlander]

Actually I like Jane's ideas in Cities and Wealth of Nations -- the whole idea of an import replacement city versus one of consumption -- needs updating to the Global Knowledge Economy era when it is very hard to define where anything is from -- except of course from the standpoint of the Intelectual Property -- tied to the product /service -- it has a pedigree and parentage

That's what the Innovation District is all about -- creation of enterprise through innovation in technology

My big argument with SK is that she seems always to be critical of a project -- as of matter of course (too big, tall, dark, close, bulky, dense, reflective, shadowy, thin, wide, etc., etc.)

I'm no fan of linkage eiher financial or political -- nor am I much of a fan of highly detaiiled zoning -- but the reality of this time and era is that the BRA works for the Mayor and the Mayor is essentially an autocrat since the electorate justs elects and elects with no real competition

I think that the successful model for the Seaport / Innovation District would be the Back Bay -- there was a street grid and then requirement for set-backs from the streets -- the rest was left up to the developers.

of course in the mid 19th century rahmin Boston there was a minimal risk of anything other than either a protestent church or the top-of-the-line single family town residence being built as each block was filled

No elevators so no skyscrapers and no industry or commerce that could afford the building sites -- check-out the following MIT OpenCourseware document an article originallly from 1926 by Old Colony trust Co. -- now part of Bank of America) -- http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/civil-an...ings/build_back_bay_the_old_colony_trust_comp

Note in particular that a lot of things are still the same as then;
1) sneak the original bill for building the Mill Dam (now Beacon Street) through the Legislature
2) took a long time from concept to realization -- "In 1814, a man who has since been called the "Chief Benefactor of Boston" had an idea. It was so stupendous that it was then considered a weird, impossible dream. Yet the train of consequences resulting from that idea have been largely responsible for Boston's greatness ... Uriah Cotting .. formed the Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation ... to build a series of dams connecting Boston, Brookline, and Roxbury; to use these dams as toll roadways, and to develop water power by the tidal flow in and out of the Back Bay." -- he was quite Green before his time --- "Uriah Cotting did not live to see his project completed. He was succeeded by Loammi Baldwin, who finished, in 1821, the construction of the dams."
3) when finished it was obsolete -- "soon became a nuisance, an eyesore, and a menace to the health of the city. The building of railways and dissatisfaction among the mill interests with the available power foretold further development. The public voice began to urge that the flats of the basin be filled in and new land be made, as had already been done along the harbor front." -- note that this would be impossible with today's regulations
4) have a Plan - B -- they repurposed the tidal basin --- " Several plans for the development of the district were proposed, and, in 1852, a legislative committee recommended that the district be filled in.... the new district was to be "laid out in rectangular plots... hundred feet wide between buildings, while the central boulevard - Commonwealth Avenue - was to have the unprecedented width for Boston of two hundred and forty feet!"
5) don't be surprised if there is state capitalism at wor It was the accepted program that the State should pay for the work of filling in the basin, and should be repaid by the sale of the new land. Certain lots were to be set aside for museums, schools, charities, and so forth. Other spaces were to be left for parks and playgrounds, and the balance to be sold for residences.
6) don't be surprised if there are NIMBYs -- But before actual work could be begun, there was much wrangling and disagreement. The town of Roxbury, perhaps a bit jealous of her larger neighbor, refused at first to disclaim title to the bottom lands within her boundaries. The powerful water power company held out for better terms. Petty bickerings and politics delayed operations several years, but finally, in 1859, the Back Bay was attacked with sand, gravel, and earth.


8) eventually -- we'll find out what the place really was good for -- " a decade or more the pressure in the congested downtown section of Boston has caused many to seek a business home in the wider spaces of the newer city. Very gradually trade has crept westward into Back Bay. New business centers have grown up in the neighborhood. The modern apartment house has, in many cases, displaced the residence of the '70's(that would be the 1870's as this was originally written in the roaring 1920's)

 

[whighlander]

SK is more than a bit of a hypocrite. Her husband works for a Boston teaching hospital.

In 2010, the U.S. taxpayers funneled $1.731 billion to Boston hospitals and medical schools (mostly to the hospitals). This was for research, not for Medicare reimbursement. Boston received nearly $600 million more than New York City, and $1.2 billion more than San Francisco.

The taxpayers of this country have paid for Longwood, Kendall, and the other concentrations of life sciences research in Greater Boston. Vertex wouldn't be building on Fan Pier, or leaving Kendall if the U.S. taxpayer for decades had not been funding all this medical research in Boston.

So enough already with the hypocrisy, and sanctimonious pronouncements.

Stellar -- you are somewhat confusing cause and effect - the money going to the teaching hospitals is 2ndary to the fundmental research done mostly at MIT and a few other places

1) It all started around 1970 when Richard M. Nixon declared his "War on Cancer" -- all of a sudden people doing fundamntal biology who had been having a hard time getting funded -- could rewrite their grant applications with the word Cancer in the title -- money flowed carerrs flourished -- Nobel Prizes followed and suddenly there was new interest in DNA which had been discovered and ignored -- then the fundamenl double helix was unveiled and then it was ignored again

20 the 2nd phase began about 1980 with an earlier incarnation of Kendal Sq. as AI alley after Thinking Machines and several othe companies involved in Artificial Intelligence spun out of MIT -- suddently the idea of piecing together thousands if not millions of small bits of broken up DNA wasn't impossible to imagine

3) 3rd phase -- Whitehead -- a rich successful private citizen was inspired to create an institute accross the street from the Institute premised on making use of the baisic bio --enshrined in several Nobels purculating out of MIT -- " Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The Whitehead Institute was founded as a fiscally independent entity from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and its members and associate members hold faculty appointments in MIT's Biology Department.

4) 4th step -- the US Dept of Energy, NSF and NIH combined to pay for the Human genome project -- it starts in 1989 -- using MIT's software to stitch together the fragments --- nearly 40% of the whole project was done in Kendal Sq. at the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research -- contributed one-third of the human genome sequence announced in June 2000

5) fifth step -- with lots of research and some patents starting to come out of this heavy on science approach to pharmaseuticals -- it was inevitable that the Big Co's would come knocking -- in 2002 -- it the call was from switzerland -- " Five years after announcing its Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research would move to Cambridge near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sister division Novartis VaccinesbizWatch began physically moving its headquarters from California to Cambridge late last month. The division is now occupying a 50,000-square-foot, white-tiled space right upstairs from the Asgard and a short walk from the Novartis Institutes space in the rehabbed Necco candy factory at 250 Massachusetts Ave. "

6) sixth step -- In June 2003, Eli and Edythe L. Broad pledged $100 million to build the Broad Institute, a joint venture of Whitehead, MIT, Harvard and local teaching hospitals. The new venture's mission is to expand tools for genomic medicine and apply them for the treatment of disease. "

7) this approach is fueling the boom -- the money to the teaching hospitals is the by product of the private and public investment in the basic science

when you take into account the private money now pouring in from big Pharma and the occasional VC funded start-up going public -- the public money is beginng to shrink in its importance

Remember a scant 50 years ago if you wanted to work in pharamceuticals with a few minor exceptions it was not here -- now with Novartis (swiss), Shire (UK), Sanofi (French), Astrazenatech (Uk/Sweedish), Bayer (Germany), Amgen (californai) Milenium (japanese), Merck and Co (NJ), Phizer (CT), GlaxoSmithKline (UK) -- basically the world has come to scribble notes off the ol-fashioned chalk boards at MIT and hoist a few with the MIT gnurds in the pubs arround Kendal Sq.

All of this is now spreading (minus MIT) to the Innovation District

 

[stellarfun]

Sicilian, thanks for clarifying SK's positions with respect to development and linkage.

I perhaps should have read this first, before surmising where she stood/stands.

http://www.shirleykressel.com/MyWebsite/About_Me.html
___________________________________

whighlander, thanks for the chronology. You could add Koch and MIT's neurosciences building to the mix. And if Harvard ever gets off its butt and builds out the science complex in Allston.

I still assert that SK created a strawman with her Rhode island example, being deliberately disingenuous when she ought to know better, given the symbiosis and synergy that exists in Boston -- like nowhere else -- between its universities, its teaching hospitals, and Big and Little Pharma, and of which she is well aware.

 

[TheRifleman]

SK created a straw man with her reference to RI. But there certainly are other cities which would be willing to get a company like Vertex and a billion dollar laboratory.

San Francisco is spending $300 million on infrastructure for Mission Bay, and to lure and keep companies, e.g., Twitter, waives city payroll tax on employees.

What don't you understand? The reason why Cambridge MA is the home of the Biotech Industry is because of MIT & HARVARD, the talent pool. VERTEX was not going anywhere.
These biotech companies are staying extremely close to the talent pool at all costs. These specific colleges are always on sometype of cutting edge Biotechnology which could be costly to these specific companies from going bankrupt in the future from outdated technology.

Look what comes out of Harvard........MSFT & Facebook Founders.....They couldn't leave MA fast enough. But the Biotech industry is different and that is why these companies are always recruiting.

Vertex will attract other entrepreneurial firms to the Innovation District -- in 10 years it could be a mini-Kendal

If Fan Pier wanted to be the Innovation District or the new mini-Kendal it would have already been the mini-Kendal on it's own.

It's ashame that the only vision that Developer Joe Fallon and the city of Boston had was to rip off successful part of Cambridge's hot biotech industry.. IMHO this was prime real estate wasted by GREED and lack of vision.

I am extremely disappointed that we have to watch the Seaport Evolve into a biotech Hazard..........These morons really could not think of anything else but to steal Cambridge's hot biotech companies with massive tax breaks to private developers. It's a disgrace and they still had to rip off the taxpayers.

Answer this question. Private developer Chiofaro wants' to knock down Harbor Garage and is willing to give the city 50 Million dollars to justify for more height for his project. (this is in benefit for the city and taxpayer)

Private developer Joe Fallon takes 72 Million dollars in taxpayers subsidaries to lure a private corporation because he didn't want to lower his rents to Vertex. (this is against the law)

The Mayor and the BRA snub Chiofaro but give Fallon our Money. There is something really wrong with the development process in this city.

 

[Sicilian]

^stellarfun

When I read SK's comments about Vertex was being courted by Rhode Island (as testified during a hearing by the Municipal Research Bureau aka "Rubber Stamp Research" in my opinion), I don't sense SK was focusing on pharma in particular. She even mentions using Google to do her basic research.

Instead, I gather SK is suggesting that statements about RI and other states courting our businesses is propaganda employed to secure unreasonable subsidies and tax breaks. In the Seaport District, the NE Patriots used the same "we are being courted" approach as did the "other cities like Detroit..." BCEC. There may be truth to the fact that other states are courting MA companies, but it really has become a mantra used by cheerleaders for exacting taxpayer subsidies and infrastructure -- as has the misapplication of the BRA's "blighted" designation for takings and tax subsidies.