Pinnacle at Central Wharf (Harbor Garage) | 70 East India Row | Waterfront | Downtown

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stellarfun said:
Except that garage will need to be demolished at some point because its no longer structurally safe. And leaving the garage as is, doesn't address the compelling need to make that whole area climate-resilient. And who pays for that?
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Private garages get refurbished all the time, with reinvested operating funds. It's not a public structure, so we'll never know about it. And if the Mayor or Mayor-to-be (or the CLF, for that matter) thought that the climate resiliency needs of this area were compelling or pressing, they wouldn't have trashed a Harbor Plan filled with waterfront resiliency solutions to spite an old dude with a mustache.
 
Equilibria said:
Private garages get refurbished all the time, with reinvested operating funds. It's not a public structure, so we'll never know about it. And if the Mayor or Mayor-to-be (or the CLF, for that matter) thought that the climate resiliency needs of this area were compelling or pressing, they wouldn't have trashed a Harbor Plan filled with waterfront resiliency solutions to spite an old dude with a mustache.
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Equilibria, I agree with 90%+ of what you post on aB, but our analyses diverge here.
1) This is not some generic inland garage, nor (from the city's standpoint) is this even about this one garage. It's about the fact that everything along this waterfront is in grave condition and about to get really expensive really fast. The Hook site sits at the gateway to the new shiny Seaport, and is completely dilapidated and decomposing as that owner awaits a development opportunity; there are various non-trivial issues with flooding all along the waterfront (not sure the extent to which Long Wharf is "patched," but it's not a permanent fix); the aquarium and its surroundings are in awful shape, the garage has been exposed to salt air for half a century. Fixing all of this is more expensive than typical property maintenance, and there's little to prevent an owner from walking away from any of these train wrecks once they felt they've made enough money. If I'm the city, I recognize that intervention is required here, and given that, I'd prefer to get free money to do that rather than have to gut other public budgets to deal with this.
2) The opponents (and their ostensible political & foundation allies) are not fighting this fight to spite an old dude with a mustache, they are doing it to preserve HT residents' views. It's self-serving, plain and simple. They too want the waterfront fixed/resilient, but if they can in any way get $$ toward that whilst also avoiding blocking their views, they're going to fight tooth-and-nail for it. They figure their property values are taking a hit whether by sea levels or a wall across from their window, so why not fight the fight.

Between the Moakley bridge and Long Wharf (perhaps beyond), there's a 10-figure price tag for resiliency, removal of blight, and improved public realm. The city doesn't have that money. If I'm a mayor, securely re-elected, then I'm going to re-pursue getting Pru's/Chiofaro's $$ to remove the garage and fix a stretch of waterfront. As politically unsavory as some of the concessions will be, there simply isn't as low-hanging-a-fruit source of $$ to move forward here...a good politician will know that.
 
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stellarfun said:
The garage is owned by Rams Head Development Corp (RHDC)., an LLC, incorporated in 2007.
https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ma/000965905
The address of the owner is 7 Giralda Farms, Madison NJ, which is an office of PGIM, Prudential's real estate branch.

The ENF identifies Chiofaro as the development "agent".
https://www.pinnaclecentralwharf.com/pdf/City-of-Boston-Article-80-Project-Notification-Form.pdf

Its been years since my course on the law of agency, but generally a principal (the owner) cannot also be the agent (someone who acts on behalf of the owner). The potential for conflicts of interest and self-dealing are too great. (If you contract with a real estate agent to sell your house, that contract does not give the agent an ownership stake in the house.)

When TishmanSpeyer forced Chiofaro, in 2004, to declare bankruptcy on IP, he was financially wiped out.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2004/05/03/daily55.html

After Prudential came to his rescue, and Tishman Speyer was bought off, Chiofaro was given a small ownership stake in IP (it may be 5 percent, I can't recall the precise value) and given responsibility for management of the property. But in 2007, Chiofaro did not have enough nickels to rub together nor sufficient leverage equity in IP to buy the HT garage for $153 million. Hence, the creation of the RHDC LLC for that purpose.
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My 25 years as a corporate lawyer at one of the biggest firms in Boston gives me a basis to dispute this. It is absolutely common for multiple tier LLCs to be set up and individuals to have multiple roles both economic and management. Rams Head is the ownership entity but that tells you nothing about economics.
 
stellarfun said:
Except that garage will need to be demolished at some point because its no longer structurally safe. And leaving the garage as is, doesn't address the compelling need to make that whole area climate-resilient. And who pays for that?
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Do you have any basis for this statement? No offense but for years you stated as fact that the garage was losing money. Now the latest from you is that it's about to fall down which is something I haven't seen reported anywhere.
 
Rover said:
Do you have any basis for this statement? No offense but for years you stated as fact that the garage was losing money. Now the latest from you is that it's about to fall down which is something I haven't seen reported anywhere.
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First, I never said that the garage was about to fall down. To a suggestion that the garage would still be there 100 years from now, I said its structural integrity would be compromised long before then. Is that five years from now? ten years? twenty years? I don't know. I do know that 35 years after the HT residences were built, the condo owners were hit with a $75 million assessment to replace the HVAC, which suggests the original towers (built as rental apartments) weren't designed as the proverbial brick shithouse.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Between the Moakley bridge and Long Wharf (perhaps beyond), there's a 10-figure price tag for resiliency, removal of blight, and improved public realm. The city doesn't have that money. If I'm a mayor, securely re-elected, then I'm going to re-pursue getting Pru's/Chiofaro's $$ to remove the garage and fix a stretch of waterfront. As politically unsavory as some of the concessions will be, there simply isn't as low-hanging-a-fruit source of $$ to move forward here...a good politician will know that.
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I wish I shared your optimism that Boston, Massachusetts, or any US jurisdiction is going to actually fight to build what critically needs to be built to protect against sea level rise, it's just that everything I know about infrastructure planning and execution in the past 70 years in this country suggests otherwise.

And I actually would argue that this is mostly to spite Chiofaro - I wasn't just being glib. The point is for all of these people to performatively show that they "stand up to big, bad developers" by ragging on the guy everyone already hates. Chiofaro has no allies and a public image as a joke. The Aquarium is in it for the parking spaces, which makes them the biggest jerk here just from the hypocrisy. I guess the CLF might actually believe what they're saying about development making the waterfront less accessible without exception (regardless of the many, many, many exceptions and the fact that that's a paper-thin assumption to begin with). Janey, Wu, etc. are all just looking to signal that they'll be harder on developers than Walsh was, and no one will cry for Chiofaro.

The HT residents aren't actually a unified block, IIRC. It's more some activists on the HOA Board. Really, though, this has progressed well beyond HT at this point - it's the CLF and the Aquarium delaying Boston's climate preparedness for a decade or more out of sheer madness and lies.
 
Equilibria said:
I wish I shared your optimism that Boston, Massachusetts, or any US jurisdiction is going to actually fight to build what critically needs to be built to protect against sea level rise, it's just that everything I know about infrastructure planning and execution in the past 70 years in this country suggests otherwise...
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Perhaps our cynicisms aren't actually as different as they may seem. From my standpoint: it is precisely because I am incredibly cynical that jurisdictions will ever be able to build what's needed here that I expect politicians to be unable to resist opportunities for private money to support it. Part of it stems from what I've seen in Cambridge: the longtime locals absolutely abhor the developers, but the cash infusion to the tax base and the privately-funded public benefits (sidewalks, parks, some infrastructure, etc) have been too much for the local pols to resist. And truth is that public benefit does come of it (if it's well managed). One could argue that roughly $250mil of this project would be (or could/should be) closely related to climate resilience and public realm - the question is whether that's irresistible or not. Even some of the fiercest critics of the Winthrop Ctr project stood down once $100mil+ was going to get pumped into the parks.
 
I blame myself and anyone else on this thread who didn't appear at the public hearings to point out how absurd the opposition was and how they published bold-faced lies on social media to mislead the public about the harbor plan.
 
Patrick Winn said:
I blame myself and anyone else on this thread who didn't appear at the public hearings to point out how absurd the opposition was and how they published bold-faced lies on social media to mislead the public about the harbor plan.
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That doesn't stop an interim mayor from pulling a planning document for votes...
 
stefal said:
That doesn't stop an interim mayor from pulling a planning document for votes...
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Exactly. Very low cost for her. And it is not as if Prudential/Chiofaro were going to build Pinnacle on spec, so even with approvals in hand, the garage would be sitting there until a tenant(s) was found and signed on.
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Prudential owned a building complex in DC called Washington Harbour for six years, buying it for about $220 million in 2004, and selling it for $240+ million in 2010. I don't recall them making any significant capital investment during the time they owned it.

The year after Prudential sold it, this happened.
2011_0418_flooding7-600x400.jpg

https://dcist.com/gallery/washington-harbour-flooding/#1
The management company had neglected to raise the flood barriers, supposedly assured by a restaurant owner that the river wouldn't come over the bank. There was great concern that the weight of the floodwater would collapse the underground garage, as the garage slabs were not designed for that weight, and with the garage collapse, the above-ground buildings would collapse as well.

Flood damage was repaired, and the new owner undertook a three-year repair of all the brickwork and cast stone, originally laid by non-union masons from Central America, and leaking badly.

In 2013, the property was sold again for $373 million, and in 2018 sold again for $415 million.

The saga of the HT garage can't hold a candle to the saga of Washington Harbour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Harbour
 
Patrick Winn said:
It would have...if the interim mayor sensed thre was more support for the project than opposition.
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A handful of additional people vs. a largely uninformed public who hear she's cancelling a big tower in the name of climate change, NIMBY's/BANANA's who only complain about housing costs and shadows on every square inch of the city, and the residents of the Harbor Towers, who are fuming over this project. Public perception of redevelopment has gone really far south in recent years, in my opinion.
 
stefal said:
Public perception of redevelopment has gone really far south in recent years, in my opinion.
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When you have articles in the globe comparing building a tower on Federal Street to building a tower directly on the common, what do you expect? Then we get all these disgusting blob buildings, as fat as possible, that chip away at the character of the city, but these idiots will never put 2+2 together.
 
BeeLine said:
www.bizjournals.com

Boston 'can’t withdraw' downtown waterfront plan, Gov. Charlie Baker says - Boston Business Journal

In a surprise move last month, Boston Acting Mayor Kim Janey said she would ask the state to withdraw the city’s downtown waterfront plan, throwing the future of the city’s waterfront in doubt.
www.bizjournals.com www.bizjournals.com
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So the city is as procedurally inept as the Commonwealth was in having the wrong official approve the plan. Methinks Baker held off on the announcement until after the primary.

Assuming the state remedies its procedural error in fairly short order, then the state's official approval of the plan could occur long before there is an amendment, or a new substitute plan prepared by the city.
 
stellarfun said:
So the city is as procedurally inept as the Commonwealth was in having the wrong official approve the plan. Methinks Baker held off on the announcement until after the primary.

Assuming the state remedies its procedural error in fairly short order, then the state's official approval of the plan could occur long before there is an amendment, or a new substitute plan prepared by the city.
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All true, but the likes of Michelle Wu could still kill these developments through the Article 80 process.
 
I'm not a Charlie Baker fan but he nails this-
“Procedurally, you can’t really just withdraw a plan. You have to write one,” Baker said. “The way you deal with these harbor plans is if you want to change it, you can. But you can’t withdraw it. You actually have to submit a new plan.”

Looks like the Harbor plan sticks because the people arguing it are too lazy to write their own plan nor have the resources to make it better.

Baker just closed this case.
 
Good Time Charlie Baker for the win! I wouldn't worry about an alternative plan being submitted anytime soon. All NIMBY'S know how to do is oppose things. Good luck getting them to come up with a viable plan. Also really happy Janey lost after her low rent stunt trying to cancel this project.
 
Rover said:
Good Time Charlie Baker for the win! I wouldn't worry about an alternative plan being submitted anytime soon. All NIMBY'S know how to do is oppose things. Good luck getting them to come up with a viable plan. Also really happy Janey lost after her low rent stunt trying to cancel this project.
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It would be up to the City to submit an alternate plan, nothing to do with the Nimby's, thankfully! The folks at BPDA spent years working on the submitted plan, can't see them enthusiastically scrapping all that work and jumping in to a new process any time soon.

I imagine the State will allow this version to continue through the process, public comment periods, etc., and then it's up to the next Mayor whether to allow the developments to proceed through the article 80 process. Still plenty of opportunities for CLF, Aquarium, Barr, etc. to sue throughout the process, unfortunately.
 
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