Murdoch seeks a partner for S. Boston site
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | June 7, 2006
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. media company, which owns almost 24 acres of South Boston Waterfront land, is dangling a choice incentive to a potential development partner: ownership of half or more of the prized location, consultants working for the firm said yesterday.
News Corp. acquired the land two months ago from Frank H. McCourt Jr., as part of its deal to sell to the Boston businessman the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. Now, the media giant is interviewing land-use consultants to help with its planning for the site, while looking for an experienced partner that could buy as much as half or more of the project -- and begin construction in about two years.
Speeding up development planning would also placate an anxious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who is keen to see progress on a such a strategic piece of undeveloped land.
``The mayor wants to see the site succeed, and hopefully we'll provide him with that progress," said Robert J. Ryan, vice president of project development for ML Strategies LLC, a consulting firm retained early this year by News Corp.
Ryan said he expected a partnership deal would be concluded by the end of this year.
News Corp. has also engaged Cushman & Wakefield of Massachusetts Inc. ``We have been hired to begin the planning stage to look for recapitalization or a codeveloper," said Rob Griffin, president of the real estate firm.
Ryan and Griffin said that News Corp. is not looking to sell the land outright. ``It is not on the block," said Ryan. ``This is an invitation to substantial parties to participate."
Unlike the adjacent Fan Pier development site, which Joseph F. Fallon purchased from the Pritzker family last year, the News Corp. land has not been through the long city and state permitting processes.
News Corp. took ownership of the land, in an area of Boston that is finally seeing development action after languishing for decades, late in March.
The company formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers .
Two years ago, it loaned McCourt $125 million, backed by the land's value, when McCourt, who was then a Boston developer, bought the team.
An executive who was involved in the transaction said that News Corp. paid about $225 million for the land when McCourt transferred the title this year.
He said News Corp. has initiated discussions with, or been contacted directly or indirectly by, a ``double-digit" number of interested parties about the site.
The land is now being used for parking cars, as it had been for years under McCourt's ownership.
McCourt had about 24 acres near the Fort Point Channel, in several parcels along Seaport Boulevard -- including one on which he had unsuccessfully sought to build a replacement for Fenway Park.
News Corp. now possesses about 23 acres, Ryan said.
In March, McCourt gave a piece of land, with News Corp.'s approval, to the Boston Children's Museum for a park.
McCourt has retained small plots of land near the water, as well as a sliver near the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.
Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at
tpalmer@globe.com.
