Pike authority tries to help garden grow
Horticultural society's scaled-back plan gets $2m boost, but critics say a grander project won't come to fruition
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | June 28, 2006
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is giving $2 million to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society to develop three choice blocks along the old Central Artery, but critics contend the organization will never be able to deliver on its promise of building a grand winter garden at the downtown Boston location, a requirement that went along with the designation.
The money is intended to help the long-troubled organization develop the land on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway into an attractive natural public space. But MassHort's most recent plan, to landscape the site and create open gathering spaces, would create a significantly less elaborate public venue than what it originally promised.
State environmental officials in 1991 designated MassHort to develop the three parcels near South Station, roughly a fourth of the Greenway. The society once envisioned outdoor gardens and a winter garden, a glittering glass box filled with botanical exhibits. But MassHort has not raised much money for that multimillion-dollar vision nor made substantial progress toward building any permanent botanical structure.
``You have been struggling for funding and haven't been able to make it happen. Why should we have MassHort still designated for this site?" asked David Seeley, a member of Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino's Central Artery Completion Task Force, said to a MassHort official at a recent meeting.
While the bulk of the parks planned for the Greenway, which stretches from Causeway to Kneeland streets, will be completed in 2007, MassHort's plan is now not scheduled to be done until 2008. That, too, provokes consternation from activists involved in the Greenway development.
``I have been asking for 12 years whether the emperor has any clothes," Rob Tuchmann, cochairman of the mayoral task force, declared in frustration at a recent meeting, after he was unable to get MassHort to present its plans or field questions. ``It's clear to me these parcels are not going to be ready when the other parcels are," Tuchmann said.
Thomas Herrera-Mishler , executive director of MassHort, said yesterday that, while there have been many false starts, the organization is progressing on key aspects of the Greenway project. The society, he added, is likely to develop the land in phases over an extended period .
MassHort has a preliminary design for landscaping, gardens, gathering areas, and a learning center that was created by Copley Wolff Design Group. The $35,000 cost was borne by a Boston business group, the Artery Business Committee, now known as A Better City. Moreover, an anonymous foundation has increased an earlier $250,000 pledge to $750,000, which will cover the expected $150,000 cost of final design and further planning, Herrera-Mishler said.
MassHort will soon select a landscape designer, he added, and expects the plans to be completed in about a year.
The $2 million from the Turnpike amounts to half of what the society says it needs to turn the blocks, between the Evelyn Moakley Bridge and Summer Street, into a well-manicured, inviting stretch of the Greenway . Turnpike chairman Matthew Amorello expressed no concern over MassHort's performance. ``They've met their commitments. It's going to be a beautiful space."
MassHort has had several changes in leadership, its financial condition prompted it to sell its headquarters near Symphony Hall as well as a collection of rare books, and several times it has changed its approach to developing the downtown land earmarked for its use.
But MassHort officials say the society is finally stabilizing under the leadership of Herrera-Mishler, who took over last year. For example, after losing patrons for a decade, the society's flagship New England Spring Flower Show this year took in $1.3 million in ticket sales and attendance rose 10 percent to more than 86,000, Herrera-Mishler said.
``We're very excited about the financial support that has developed from both private and public sources," Herrera-Mishler said. ``The trustees and staff are committed to developing a world-class public garden in downtown Boston."
But even he concedes it will be difficult to fulfill the dreams of Big Dig planners for an ambitious and spectacular facility where the old elevated highway once cast shadows.
Society officials recently quit using the word ``interim" to refer to their scaled-back plans. That plan involves landscaping on all three blocks, a lawn for weddings and other gatherings on one, gardens and space on a second block for educational events, and a tent and space for public gatherings on the third piece, near South Station. A farmers' market may also have permanent space on the block near Dewey Square.
MassHort officials view the landscaping and gathering spaces as more or less permanent because they cannot predict when they would be able to build the elaborate winter garden .
``Plans for a winter garden or garden under glass were conceived around the $100 million mark," Herrera-Mishler said in April. ``Given the climate and charitable contributions in Boston, it's not feasible for MassHort to build something of that scale."
Yesterday, Herrera-Mishler said the organization is still committed to a long-range plan for a winter garden, though he would not put a date on it. ``That's one of the things we will be designing," he said. ``We have always planned for a winter garden."
Indefinitely pushing out plans for a winter garden, however, could violate the regulations under which the state won approval to build the Big Dig, according to Anne Fanton , who tracks the state's commitments for the Central Artery Environmental Oversight Committee.
``I'm concerned not only that they are not presenting to the public, task force, and community the preliminary plans for what they are doing, but also they are not meeting the original requirement for a winter garden," Fanton said this week.
Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at
tpalmer@globe.com.
