Running Down A Dream (Roxbury's P-3)

latest news(2/8/09) http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...oice_parcel_bumps_into_wall_at_bra/?page=full
Elma Lewis Partners LLC is not backing down, no matter what the city says.

It's moving forward with plans to transform an empty plot of land - known as Parcel 3, across from the Boston Police Department headquarters on Tremont Street - into the new hub of the city's black community.

The city's not so sure about that.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority said the group failed to prove it could deliver a fundable project. So the BRA has cut off Elma Lewis Partners from Parcel 3, essentially removing its designation as the tentative developer for the land.

But Elma Lewis Partners is holding on to its dream of a $400 million complex, called Ruggles Place, complete with cultural, residential, office, small retail and medical space, along with an arts building and a garage with 1,000-plus spaces.

The company said it has received no formal notice of a decision from the BRA board, nor has it been formally advised by the BRA staff that its tentative designation as developer has been rescinded. The BRA said no formal notice is needed.

"We expect to move forward and we are not eager to be fighting . . . with the BRA," said Edmund Barry Gaither, who directs the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists Inc., which created the community development partnership and named it for the late Boston arts educator and mentor.

The fallout over Parcel 3 is reverberating across Roxbury, where some activists question the BRA's ability to override what they see as the community's will.

At a meeting Monday evening of the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan oversight committee, appointed by the mayor in 2004 to work with the BRA on redeveloping vacant parcels in Roxbury, some members expressed strong support for Elma Lewis Partners and outrage about the BRA's decision.

The oversight committee made its position clear in a December letter to BRA director John Palmieri in which it refused to accept the decision about Parcel 3 until the authority explained why it let the developer's designation lapse. The oversight committee also refused to solicit other bids to develop the parcel.

As of last week, the BRA had not responded, committee members said.

Community activists are also pressing the BRA, saying it did not give Elma Lewis Partners a fair chance and squashed its efforts just as the housing market crumbled and the credit crunch hit.

"We don't want those developers moved from the project," said Bob Terrell, chairman of the Roxbury Neighborhood Council, in a phone interview last week.

In addition, as Elma Lewis Partners scrambled to secure commitments for tenants and financing and build its development team, news swirled about other plans for the parcel - such as a Wal-Mart-type store on the property or a soccer stadium, irritating some in the community, who speculated that the BRA was imposing its own will.

"No one was talking to us about it," said M. Daniel Richardson, a community activist and cochairman of the 15-member oversight committee. "We were finding out about it through the newspaper."

E.J. Walton, president of Elma Lewis Partners, said the company has the community on its side, and that it's up to the BRA to step in line.

"The party who is out of school is the BRA saying it wants to do new things. In doing that, it's basically saying it wants to destroy the whole process."

But the BRA has moved on, said Palmieri.

He said Elma Lewis Partners had 18 months to prove it could secure tenants and financing for the project, but failed to do so. Last September, the BRA board granted the group a 30-day extension. It said if the developer did not meet its terms by Oct. 21, the deal would be "rescinded without prejudice and without further action the BRA board."

Elma Lewis Partners never complied, the BRA said.

"Their principal responsibility was to demonstrate that they can put together a fundable project," Palmieri said last week. "They failed to do anything to the satisfaction of our staff."

Palmieri said he's met with members of the panel's executive committee and explained the BRA's decision, and said he's willing to work with the panel to reassess other uses for the site.

"I'd like to think there will be a meeting of the minds to work together to build a consensus and see how best to proceed," he said.

But Walton said the BRA staff didn't give his company a chance. He said the BRA dragged its feet on the parcel, but gave Elma Lewis Partners virtually no time - or extended time - to properly do the work to meet BRA demands.

"They have another game plan," he said.

Activists interviewed say they hope the BRA and the oversight committee will meet to iron out differences and reach a consensus. But the Parcel 3 dispute has created fissures on the committee.

Darnell L. Williams, who chairs the oversight committee and is president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, said the burden is on the developer to prove it has the cash, equity, and ability to take the parcel from concept to reality. If those things are not in place, he said, Elma Lewis Partners should not hold the community "hostage while it gets its act together."

"Our job is not to fall in love with any individual developer," he said. "Our job is to stay focused on Roxbury being developed."
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The fallout over Parcel 3 is reverberating across Roxbury, where some activists question the BRA's ability to override what they see as the community's will.
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Can the community "will" together $400 million?
 
What should have been done from the start and what will be the ultimate outcome is teaming the art groups up with a reputable developer.
 
So we drove by Parcel 3 this evening. Barren lots. Going up across the street, two new Northeastern University dorms. NEU never looked closer.

Is this city taking back the rights to build on Parcel 3 from the Elma Lewis Partnership so that it can award the rights to Northeastern?
 
The Herald recently came out with a few articles about them losing the funding. I hope that a NU-New England Revs partnership will occur to bring a 30K seat stadium. I am sure both parties would be very interested in this possibility depending on the terms.
 
Back when the soccer stadium idea was floated I wrote a comment (under a nom de plume) saying it made little sense to me.

I was younger then; now I can see the logic of it. I think I'd still prefer housing and/or a mixed-use development but putting a soccer stadium there might make sense, being so close to public transportation, I-695 (I mean, Melnea Cass Blvd), and ... the BPD headquarters.
 
I know this deal intimately and the bottom line is that the Elma Lewis team simply had no money to bring its dreams for an arts and cultural center to fruition. To create the center required 70 million in donations.

The only deal that is even remotely realistic is a northeastern dorm or a soccer stadium.
 
NU has schematic plans to replace it's low rise garage and parking lots on Columbus Avenue with a stadium, underground parking, and street level retail. The neighborhood, as usual, is finding every complaint it can to extort money from the University. I live no where near the University and 'community groups' have sometimes left notices in my mail slot trying to find opposition to redeveloping parking lots or air rights.

P-3 is a dead end because the people in charge have no money or realistic plan. Aside from bringing in a sensible developer or handing the land over to Roxbury CC, I don't see anything happening there. I also really doubt Northeastern would want to expand onto this land with so many other projects in the pipe to infill existing spaces on their campus to make it more cohesive.
 
There are three threads with entries on this topic, btw. One of the entries on the P-25 parcel should be under P-3.

When It Comes To Land Development, The Mayor Is Key
By Fred Thys, wbur.org

BOSTON ? Across the street from the Boston Police Department headquarters, on Tremont Street, an eight-acre piece of land sits vacant. The plot had been a neighborhood before it was destroyed to make way for the Southwest Expressway, a highway that was never built.

Last April, this piece of land was the subject of a heated meeting at the Dudley Square Library.

South End developer Kevin McCrea, one of three candidates running against Mayor Thomas Menino, was among those at the library that night. ?We were there for a meeting about how the Elma Lewis Partners had been de-designated by the BRA,? McCrea recalled.

Elma Lewis was a mentor to generations of dancers, singers and actors who trained at her school in Roxbury. The group, named after the late arts teacher, proposed to transform the parcel, known as P3, into a complex that would include offices, stores, housing, an art museum, a health center and a school.

Two years ago, the Boston Redevelopment Authority designated Elma Lewis Partners as the lead developers on the huge parcel of land. But after the collapse of world financial markets last fall, Elma Lewis Partners lost all hope of finding financing for the project, and the BRA took it away from them.

?We felt that this was an arbitrary and discriminatory treatment of us,? said Edmund Barry Gaither, one of the Elma Lewis Partners.

A real-estate financier working with Elma Lewis Partners said, until last fall?s financial collapse, the project seemed promising: It was close to a T station, Longwood Medical Center and Northeastern University, and the museum would draw people to the shops and restaurants.

Mayor Menino said the only reason that Elma Lewis Partners lost the project was that the group couldn?t put the money together. ?For two years, they had designated. Nothing ever happened,? Menino said. ?Nothing ever happened, because the developer was never able to get any equity, never came up with any plans. ?

The Dudley Square Library was packed that night in April. Kevin McCrea said he and the other two candidates running against the mayor, City Councilors Sam Yoon and Michael Flaherty, were among those present.

?The crowd was very animated and very upset,? McCrea said. ?At one point, a woman stood up and said, ?This is an election year. It?s time to get rid of the mayor,? and the crowd spontaneously erupted with applause and cheers ? and the people realize it?s not the BRA. It?s the mayor that?s behind all this.?

The executive director of the BRA, John Palmieri, was there to defend the decision to pull the city?s support away from Elma Lewis Partners.

?Almost to a one, people spoke about their commitment to the Elma Lewis Partners group, even though they understood, I think, that the group had failed to achieve certain kinds of benchmarks along the way,? Palmieri said. ?It became clear to us at that meeting that the community, generally speaking, was very much in support of having us reconsidering their designation.?

Also present at the meeting was City Councilor Michael Flaherty, who is also running against the mayor.

?There was probably a couple of hundred concerned residents of the community who basically felt that they were snookered, that they were lied to,? Flaherty said, ?and that the mayor and the BRA ? because they didn?t either like who was involved in it or they had another plan in mind ? decided to pull the rug out from underneath it.?

Kevin McCrea said people in the meeting had the impression that Elma Lewis Partners was not going to be able to get the project back. ?The BRA director informed the crowd that they had been de-designated because they had not met certain terms of the agreement by agreed-upon dates,? McCrea said, ?and that there was no possible way that Elma Lewis Partners could be re-designated by the BRA.?

After the meeting, the Bay State Banner, the city?s African-American newspaper, published an editorial urging African-Americans to vote against the mayor. Within days, the mayor held a press conference announcing that Elma Lewis Partners was being re-designated as the developer of Parcel 3.

?The mayor got involved,? said John Palmieri. ?He was listening to a number of neighborhood people. ?

?I came out and gave 18 more months,? Menino said, ?and they still haven?t got anything new.?

The Whittier Street Health Center, which plans to build its new facility on Parcel 3, is now a key part of the plan, because it?s secured federal money to build its clinic. But the mayor remains skeptical that Elma Lewis can pull the project off.

?Whittier Street was the catalyst for me re-designating them, and they?re still having problems,? Menino said, ?The developer?s not cooperating with them this time. They want Whittier Street to pay for all the infrastructure. The developers also have to understand that they have to have some equity. Where is the equity to get the project done? I want this project to move up front, because there?s nothing else going on there. ?

The plan now is for the health center to go ahead with construction, even though Elma Lewis Partners has yet to secure financing for the rest of the project.

John Palmieri, the head of the BRA, said, in the end, things worked out the way they should. ?It just became clear that we needed to reconsider?, Palmieri said, ?and it?s hard to do sometimes when you?re in public service in my kind of position to make those changes, but I think the mayor was principally responsible for really encouraging us to consider what the neighborhood had to say, and so I think the process was well served.?

But the mayor?s opponents, including City Councilor Sam Yoon, said what happened with Parcel 3 is a lesson on what needs to change.

?This is not the way development should be happening in the city,? Yoon said. ?This is not the way communities? desires and their own vision should be realized. The BRA, their presence in the community is often seen as arrogant, and rightly so. The mayor reversing himself in that dramatic a fashion just really shows how out of touch he is. ?

Another of Menino?s opponents, Kevin McCrea, said all development in the city depends on the mayor. ?The only process in this city is whether you?re in good standing with the mayor or not,? McCrea said. ?After the Bay State Banner came out with the editorial, the mayor is there with the Elma Lewis Partners, re-designating them, something that the head of the supposedly independent Boston Redevelopment Authority said could not happen. Clearly the mayor runs everything in this town ? and the only process is making sure that he?s happy.?

But none of the three candidates has offered a road map for how to do things differently, other than to say that the process has to be less personal.

Menino had harsh words for his opponents. ?They have nothing else to do,? Menino said. ?They haven?t accomplished anything in their careers. I?m trying to do a decent job in the city, but you?re listening to guys who don?t care about the city. They only want to make headlines. I?m trying to move Boston forward.?

It?s not clear how the project moves forward now. A development consultant and a real-estate financier working on it said Elma Lewis Partners is on the verge of getting major commitments from Northeastern and from a major medical center to be long-term tenants.

They also said that Elma Lewis Partners has found a co-developer. They are waiting for the BRA?s approval. One thing all sides agree on is that what got the project back on track was the mayor?s intervention.
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This article is why I question everything I hear from the press...it is completely misleading and erroneous on so many levels. Anybody who truly understands this project and the P-3 process has known for years that the Elma Lewis group does not have a viable plan.

The community loved the idea of the arts center but as you can see, the arts center is not being built now and probably never will be built. Either of the other two project developers would have pursued the exact same tenants. Ironically, the Madison Park/Trinity team was KNOCKED OUT because of its relationship to Northeastern. The big deal was that the community didn't want Northeastern to cross Tremont Street. This is all just misplaced political opportunism.
 
^Why do you think the article is misleading? I think it's very clear from the article that Elma Lewis hasn't made any progress and appears to be incompetent.
 
Which article are you reading? The one from February or the wbur one from the other day? I was alluding to the wbur item. That article implies to me that the BRA and the mayor are big bullies oppressing a qualified development team that the neighborhood loves.
 
Don't worry, it's Chuck Turner's district. He was merely collecting funds to help with the development you see......
 
Its been what 8 or 9 months since Elma Lewis got an extension. The loan climate has hardly gotten much better. Has anyone heard anything about this recently? Menino is no longer up for elections, when does the extension run out?

Edit: Extension runs out mid-October 2010. Do you really think this will be resolved in 10 months or that another extension will happen? I believe that is around the same time as NUs Master Plan gets released
 
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BTW, there is a second thread on this - "Parcel P-3"

Ruggles gets partner
Roxbury project draws Conn. developer
Jessica Van Sack By Jessica Van Sack
Tuesday, October 5, 2010

A leading New England retail developer has joined the quest to transform a barren Roxbury parcel into a commercial and cultural hub, sources tell the Herald.

Feldco Development Corp. has agreed to develop the long-awaited Ruggles Place, a $400 million arts, retail and housing complex proposed by Elma Lewis Partners, headed by Barry Gaither, director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.

The project would span more than 1.3 million square feet at the corner of Tremont and Ruggles streets, an idle stretch of city-owned land opposite Boston Police Headquarters and known as Parcel 3.

Gaither declined to name his new partner, saying he wanted to first seek approval from the local project review committee, which is scheduled to meet tomorrow.

Feldco, of New Canaan, Conn., has developed supermarkets and shopping centers throughout New England and New York.

Though the community has talked about a supermarket at that Roxbury intersection since 1995, it remains unclear whether developers intend to lure a supermarket to Ruggles Place.

Neighborhood planners picked Elma Lewis Partners after years of consideration. Despite its popularity with the community, the project has faced political and financial hurdles.

The Herald reported last year that the Boston Redevelopment Authority booted the project?s developers after they moved to scale back the role of a key ally of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, project manager John E. Kavanagh, who is no longer involved.

Days later, angry residents successfully pressured the city to reverse course. The BRA again designated the site to Elma Lewis Partners, giving it more time to secure a financially sound partner.

But David Begelfer, head of the commercial real estate association NAIOP Massachusetts, said completing such a large-scale project in this economy is a long-shot for any development team.

?It sounds like something that is a wish-list for the area,? he said.
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What had this parcel been used for? If it goes all the way back to the sports fields, it would seem to include funky old buildings like this

Aerial view shows the layout of the site... was this a state hospital or some such thing?

I also wonder if the parcel includes some or all of the O'Bryant School parking lot?
 
On the Jan 13th BRA meeting agenda:

Request authorization to accept the creation of a partnership
between Elma Lewis Partners LLC and FeldCo Development
Corporation, named P-3 Partners LLC; to grant tentative
designation, for eighteen months, to P-3 Partners LLC as the
redeveloper of a portion of Parcel P-3 and a portion of P-3-H, as
revised to include approximately 352,076 square feet of land.
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http://bostonredevelopmentauthority... Board Meeting Agenda for 1-13-11 (draft).pdf

When the city threatened to take away their developments rights a few years ago the Bay State Banner listed all the developments in the city that had been approved and un built but that were not threatened with de-designation. It an impressive long list.
 
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