Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

[TheRifleman]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

And this makes it different from Cambridge (Kendall) how?

I agree parts of Kendall might start looking like SPID vision. That is my point Kendall Square has been developed which makes Cambridge Unique. Why are we dumping tax dollars in the best area for development in the city to make another part look like Kendall Square? If private companies actually come to the area and build their own vision then so be it.


Whigh,

My point is Cambridge already has the support. They have been through the economic cycles from High to Low. Mult-family houses, low income housing were built a long time ago around great transit system at the time, but they also had key supports that have led them to this point right now.
Three major factors that have always continue to make Cambridge evolve.
#1 The Redline infrastructure running through very well dense Squares
#2 Schools-MIT and Harvard the best in the industry
#3 Neighborhood housing built around transit which made easy access to the surrounding areas.
They are only basing SPID on high economic times that is why it will be harder to transform through tougher economic times. The infrastructure is not laid out.
How many more tax breaks or bailouts can you give to one community and not others without blowing out the system?
Cambridge bailouts were always MIT & HARVARD Long-Long Term with a vision to make an educational & Research community for the entire city.

***Cambridge is very unique with the redline Squares
Porter, Harvard, Kendall, Inman
Also all the multi-families communities built before the explosion.

SPID never had a chance.
**Just build BOX CONDOS and BOX BUILDINGS and they will come.
**Then give taxpayers money to help relocate 1million square foot tenant from cambridge.

SPID is still missing a key compoments and this is a very big one.
1. Key Infrastructure---Better accessible Transit for the area especially for Foot Traffic.

In the Globe today but need to be subscriber---Have not read it yet.

24 hours in Kendall Square

Amazon is coming, joining Genzyme, Google, and Microsoft. Apartments, shops, and cafes are springing up. Don’t blink or you’ll miss something big in this area’s hottest neighborhood.

By Eric Moskowitz
Globe Staff
February 24, 2012

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine...fCMPsiwzRZkENVm6I/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links

 

[JS38]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

"Top 5" Initiative website, containing final report on BCEC expansion and interesting video:

http://www.t5boston.com/

 

[whighlander]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

I agree parts of Kendall might start looking like SPID vision. That is my point Kendall Square has been developed which makes Cambridge Unique. Why are we dumping tax dollars in the best area for development in the city to make another part look like Kendall Square? If private companies actually come to the area and build their own vision then so be it.


Whigh,

My point is Cambridge already has the support. They have been through the economic cycles from High to Low. Mult-family houses, low income housing were built a long time ago around great transit system at the time, but they also had key supports that have led them to this point right now.
Three major factors that have always continue to make Cambridge evolve.
#1 The Redline infrastructure running through very well dense Squares
#2 Schools-MIT and Harvard the best in the industry
#3 Neighborhood housing built around transit which made easy access to the surrounding areas.
They are only basing SPID on high economic times that is why it will be harder to transform through tougher economic times. The infrastructure is not laid out.
How many more tax breaks or bailouts can you give to one community and not others without blowing out the system?
Cambridge bailouts were always MIT & HARVARD Long-Long Term with a vision to make an educational & Research community for the entire city.

***Cambridge is very unique with the redline Squares
Porter, Harvard, Kendall, Inman
Also all the multi-families communities built before the explosion.

SPID never had a chance.
**Just build BOX CONDOS and BOX BUILDINGS and they will come.
**Then give taxpayers money to help relocate 1million square foot tenant from cambridge.

SPID is still missing a key compoments and this is a very big one.
1. Key Infrastructure---Better accessible Transit for the area especially for Foot Traffic.

In the Globe today but need to be subscriber---Have not read it yet.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine...fCMPsiwzRZkENVm6I/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links

Riff -- you're still firing in full auto when you need some aimed shots -- you are getting close on the Cambridge model

East Cambridge and Cambridge Port were built to house the blue collar workers for the Kendal Sq. area which has always been the economic engine for Cambridge (mid 19th Century on)

But -- the Red LIne had nothing at all to do with it -- coming on the scene in the early 20th Century

No the Kendall mill workers arrived on foot, horse car and later electric street trolleys

The scale of the SPID -- comparable to Kendall / East Cambridge in area will have the jobs -- its has multi-time the infrastructure investment of Kendal -- including I-93/I-90 and Logan International Airport - the only question is will it have a lot of local housing or will the employees have to commute

In point of fact the "Rich Suburban Office /R&D Park" which we seem to want to hate is different from the 19th century Kendall Sq. in only one major way -- the "suburban work park" workers traditonally commute by car where as the "city work park" employees walked or took a trolley.

Today both city and suburb work parks have buildings much taller than the old 19th Century, both now are having housing even more tightly integrated with the work and both now are adding a lot of retail (e.g. Wegmanns to build in NW Park in Burlington)

So -- back to the SPID -- positives versus Kendall:
1) SPID has nearly unmatted access to the global transportation infrastructure right at its doorstep
2) it sits within walking distance of the FID and downtown Boston
3) it has a prime waterfront view "to die for" when compared to the limited amount of un-developed or under-developed Charles River views in Kendall
4) SPID already has quite a bit of development to grow out from (e.g. BCEC, Seaport Hotel, ICA, Vertex, Liberty Wharf, Fed Court House, Childtrens Museum, Tea Party Museum, etc.)

What about negatives versu Kendall though many are not absolute negatives:
1) FAA height limits in most of the district as oposed to potential for Kendall
2) confused availabiliy of some prime real estate -- e.g. U.S.PS. -- Kendall just has to accomodate MIT's growth
3) "mentality of isolation" with respect to traditional Southy -- there still is some between Kendall and East Cambridge and also Cambridge Port
4) lack of a "real university" -- this is the real limit to the potential for the SPID -- but if Olin could build from scratch in Needham there is no reason some U couldn't locate a major campette in the SPID
5) well ok the SPID doesn't have the easiest access to the Red Line except through long walks to SS or Broadway or via the Silver Line

As I've said many times -- the jury on the SPID is still out -- but the signs seem to be quite positive -- however come back in 2020 and we can revisit the discussion

 

[whighlander]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

here's an excerpt from the story on Kendall -- it might just be a view of the SPID a few years from now
In the Globe today --- need to be subscriber-- Just read it -- higly recommended although I think he missed a few of the key places and people;

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine...fCMPsiwzRZkENVm6I/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links

Exclusive Magazine Preview
24 hours in Kendall Square
Amazon is coming, joining Genzyme, Google, and Microsoft. Apartments, shops, and cafes are springing up. Don’t blink or you’ll miss something big in this area’s hottest neighborhood.
By Eric Moskowitz
| Globe Staff
February 24, 2012

.....
I take a self-portrait and rest my pounding head in my hands.
Eric Moskowitz
1:05 A.M.

STILL AT KENDALL
The fare gates whoosh.
A woman with a backpack enters, walking stiffly, clutching a laptop, heading for a bench.

“Um, excuse me,” I say. “Do you know if the T is running?”

“Yes,” she says, not looking up. I am dubious.

Sinking onto another bench, I consider reviewing the sheaf of materials in my bag. Some of them are yellowed clips, some are stored on my laptop, all chronicling the evolution of the area.

A 1966 newspaper story is full of hope. With NASA coming, a booster says, Kendall will house the “greatest concentration of scientific brains anywhere, free world or Communist.”

The next, from just seven years later, shows what happened when that potential wasn’t realized. Amid nearly a decade of post-NASA squabbling over what to do with the Kendall wasteland, frustrated residents are calling for the return of blue-collar factories over public-housing towers.

And one is a survey of hundreds of Kendall workers from 2011. Asked to describe the area in a word, most said things like “technology” or “business-oriented” or “up-and-coming.”

There in the sixth spot down the survey, however, is the old complaint about the neighborhood: that it’s “dull” and “boring.” Disheartening to those pulling for Kendall, maybe, but those answers were gathered in September. Back then, Google hadn’t finished its cafeteria; the VC firms were still in the suburbs; Kika, Fuji, and Firebrand Saints were mere ideas; and Amazon, for most New Englanders, was still just a place to shop online. As measured by the ever quickening pace here, six months might as well be a lifetime ago.

In the distance, I hear a rumble.

It turns out the train is coming to Kendall after all, hurtling through 100-year-old tunnels, speeding into the future.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Riff -- you're still firing in full auto when you need some aimed shots -- you are getting close on the Cambridge model


In point of fact the "Rich Suburban Office /R&D Park" which we seem to want to hate is different from the 19th century Kendall Sq. in only one major way -- the "suburban work park" workers traditonally commute by car where as the "city work park" employees walked or took a trolley.


As I've said many times -- the jury on the SPID is still out -- but the signs seem to be quite positive -- however come back in 2020 and we can revisit the discussion

Good response Whigh...........The question is do we really want SPID to be the next KENDALL? This was as PRIME REAL ESTATE as you could get next to the Financial District. Major opportunity....... We will be lucky to see this evolve into something like Kendall.

Do you call that a successful plan? City of Boston copies Kendall Square model Development plan for location on unlimited Waterfront opportunity. In the end the taxpayers will get milked for 100's Millions in tax breaks. The city issues the SPID tax.

however come back in 2020 and we can revisit the discussion.......AGREED

 

[whighlander]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

"Top 5" Initiative website, containing final report on BCEC expansion and interesting video:

http://www.t5boston.com/

JS -- some good points in the video

Also suggest that peope read the Globe's 24 hours in Kendall
24 hours in Kendall Square
Amazon is coming, joining Genzyme, Google, and Microsoft. Apartments, shops, and cafes are springing up. Don’t blink or you’ll miss something big in this area’s hottest neighborhood.
By Eric Moskowitz
| Globe Staff
February 24, 2012


http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine...fCMPsiwzRZkENVm6I/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links

10:01 A.M.
ALAN FEIN’S OFFICE
Fein, the Broad’s deputy director, has led me through a maze of colorfully painted corridors, past a packed conference room – “a balanced attack on our molecular ignorance about schizophrenia,” reads a slide being projected on the screen – and up to his seventh-floor office.

“This is the epicenter,” he says, gesturing to the buildings outside his window, all of which are affiliated with MIT: the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Kendall’s software and Internet companies tend to get the most attention, but life sciences firms are the biggest employers for the estimated 40,000 people who work in this area every day. Out there somewhere are biotech giants Genzyme, Biogen Idec, Novartis, and more.

Over the past decade, Kendall has seen 4 million square feet of new construction, an expansion of 40 percent, with several million more on the way. The ground level of all the offices and apartment buildings is finally starting to fill in – some 16 restaurants have opened in the past two years – but all the pieces of a vibrant neighborhood are not yet put together.

“What we miss right now are amenities, like a pharmacy,” Fein says. Yesterday, a visiting board member needed cold medicine, setting off a scramble. “We couldn’t get it for him without leaving Kendall Square.”

Obviously there are significant different perspectives on these two key hot spots -- but they both are key for Boston, for MA, for New England and for the US

These two places are the essensence of the Knowledge Economy

 

[briv]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Riff -- you're still firing in full auto when you need some aimed shots -- you are getting close on the Cambridge model

East Cambridge and Cambridge Port were built to house the blue collar workers for the Kendal Sq. area which has always been the economic engine for Cambridge (mid 19th Century on)

But -- the Red LIne had nothing at all to do with it -- coming on the scene in the early 20th Century

No the Kendall mill workers arrived on foot, horse car and later electric street trolleys

The scale of the SPID -- comparable to Kendall / East Cambridge in area will have the jobs -- its has multi-time the infrastructure investment of Kendal -- including I-93/I-90 and Logan International Airport - the only question is will it have a lot of local housing or will the employees have to commute

In point of fact the "Rich Suburban Office /R&D Park" which we seem to want to hate is different from the 19th century Kendall Sq. in only one major way -- the "suburban work park" workers traditonally commute by car where as the "city work park" employees walked or took a trolley.

Today both city and suburb work parks have buildings much taller than the old 19th Century, both now are having housing even more tightly integrated with the work and both now are adding a lot of retail (e.g. Wegmanns to build in NW Park in Burlington)

So -- back to the SPID -- positives versus Kendall:
1) SPID has nearly unmatted access to the global transportation infrastructure right at its doorstep
2) it sits within walking distance of the FID and downtown Boston
3) it has a prime waterfront view "to die for" when compared to the limited amount of un-developed or under-developed Charles River views in Kendall
4) SPID already has quite a bit of development to grow out from (e.g. BCEC, Seaport Hotel, ICA, Vertex, Liberty Wharf, Fed Court House, Childtrens Museum, Tea Party Museum, etc.)

What about negatives versu Kendall though many are not absolute negatives:
1) FAA height limits in most of the district as oposed to potential for Kendall
2) confused availabiliy of some prime real estate -- e.g. U.S.PS. -- Kendall just has to accomodate MIT's growth
3) "mentality of isolation" with respect to traditional Southy -- there still is some between Kendall and East Cambridge and also Cambridge Port
4) lack of a "real university" -- this is the real limit to the potential for the SPID -- but if Olin could build from scratch in Needham there is no reason some U couldn't locate a major campette in the SPID
5) well ok the SPID doesn't have the easiest access to the Red Line except through long walks to SS or Broadway or via the Silver Line

As I've said many times -- the jury on the SPID is still out -- but the signs seem to be quite positive -- however come back in 2020 and we can revisit the discussion

You're utterly delusional.

Kendall Sq. is a soul-sucking nowhere that exists as an economic engine solely due to its proximity to MIT. PERIOD. The Seaport has no such draw. It's an isolated patch of city where nothing is happening. Ooh, there are a couple of restaurants and bars there. So what? Where in the city are there not a couple of restaurants and bars? What is the draw? The harbor view? Come on. There won't be much to look at once the Fan Pier monstrosities are built out anyways.

The whole "Innovation District" campaign is laughable. Startups locate where the rent is cheap or where things are happening. They don't locate to newly constructed grade A office space in a fucking parking desert within a convention district with shitty public transit, which is what the new space being constructed in the Seaport District is. Get a clue.

 

[whighlander]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

You're utterly delusional.

Kendall Sq. is a soul-sucking nowhere, that exists as an economic engine solely due to its proximity to MIT. PERIOD. The Seaport has no such draw. It's an isolated patch of city where nothing is happening. Ooh, there are a couple of restaurants and bars there. So what? Where in the city are there not a couple of restaurants and bars? What is the draw? The harbor view? Come on. There won't be much to look at once the Fan Pier monstrosities are built out anyways.

The whole "Innovation District" campaign is laughable. Startups locate where the rent is cheap or where things are happening. The don't locate to newly constructed grade A office space in a fucking parking desert within a convention district with shitty public transit, which is what the new space being constructed in the Seaport District is. Get a clue.

Briv -- you've got such an attack dog attitude about first Kendall and then the SPID -- that while you make a couple of good points its lost in the background polemic.

Yes -- Kendall owes its current success in large part to MIT -- but a fair fraction of that is the MIT as developer -- the proximity to stroll over for a seminar is somewhat over-rated. Yes -- the renaisance of Kendall began as, and is still to a certain extent a collection of isolated islands rather than an integrated whole. But a lot of changes have happened in Kendall in even the past 12 months to make it more of a neighborhood than its been for 60 years?

However your contention about the isolation of the SPID is even further from reality -- OK so you don't like the Silver Line, and South Station is too long a walk -- but the highway infrastructure is all too apparent to ignore.

If you have a car parked at your place in the SPIID (live or work) you can be at Logan in 5 minutes, Newton in 10, Waltham in 15 -- that is hardly anyones' definition of isolation. And even the much maligned SL can get you to Logan or South Station in about 10 minutes after boarding.

Having seen what Kendall was and what it is and even more what its becoming -- I think a very good case for the SPID can be made. Of course, the SPID will be different and founded on differnt footings than Kendall -- but I would be very surprised if in 10 years it doesn't turn-into one of the hotter areas in Greater Boston.

PS -- last time I looked -- if you are on a harbor -- then you will have a harbor view -- From what I remember from when I stayed over at the Seaport Hotel when we were organizing a conference in 2005 -- the views were fairly spectacular.

 

[briv]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

...
If you have a car parked at your place in the SPIID (live or work) you can be at Logan in 5 minutes, Newton in 10, Waltham in 15 -- that is hardly anyones' definition of isolation. And even the much maligned SL can get you to Logan or South Station in about 10 minutes after boarding.
...

So here is an encapsulation of your suburbanite view of the city -- just a dot on your GPS navigator. Again, get a clue.

 

[whighlander]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Here is encapsulated your suburbanite view of the city -- just a dot on your GPS navigator. Again, get a clue.

I may live in a suburb -- and its a nice one at that -- and yes I do use a GPS when I navigating out here -- but in the town generally I either walk or take the T.

I started walking about Boston and also taking the T (to Fenway) when I would visit my Aunt and Uncle in East Cambridge back when there was stiill an Orange Line elevated stop at Dudley and the Red Line went from Harvard to Ashmont except there weren't yet any colors to the lines.

I've been walking the streets and piers and scrambling up top of walls and parking gargages for a better view or a better picuture for quite a while. For a lot of that time when walking around Commonwealth Pier -- the SPID was an unimaginable concept -- there was nothing but old warehouses and mostly derelict piers -- not even that many parking lots,

Sure, like Kendall there have been a number of false starts in the evolution of the SPID -- BOSCOM for example -- and of course all of the owners of the various development parcels who couldn't make it work -- and then there was the fervent and futile hope of keeping the major maritime activity which bubbled when the USS Massachusetts was in drydock -- but the best way to characterize both Kendall and SPID are works in progress -- accent on the progress.

Clearly Kendall is far more advanced in its development although on its fringes large under-utilized lots remain. I'm guessing that the Vertex project just might do for SPID what Tech Square did for Kendall -- give it an address around which to plan and build.

As I suggested to Riff - come back in 10 years and see what has transpired -- my guess is that while you might not like all of the architecture -- you might like the neighborhood.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

You're utterly delusional.

Kendall Sq. is a soul-sucking nowhere that exists as an economic engine solely due to its proximity to MIT. PERIOD. The Seaport has no such draw. It's an isolated patch of city where nothing is happening. Ooh, there are a couple of restaurants and bars there. So what? Where in the city are there not a couple of restaurants and bars? What is the draw? The harbor view? Come on. There won't be much to look at once the Fan Pier monstrosities are built out anyways.

.

The only draw for me to head down to the Seaport District is the restaurants which have unlimited amounts of Parking and great views.

I think Whigh forgets is Seaport will always look for Topdollar but without great infrastructure they won't get it. And that is why the city needs to use taxpayers dollars to help developers build their infrastructure to attract corporations to head down to the area. Every developer in this area will cut costs at any opportunity they see. Nothing of quaility will be built in SPID.

In what I'm seeing the BRA & the city really fucked up with the entire planning of what should have been a master piece of development in this area.

I'm glad Briv your seeing what I'm seeing evolve in front of my eyes.
Yes things might be different by 2020

I have no clue about development.
But city planning an area should have gone like this.
#1 NEW MBTA MAP GRID for the area
#2 FAA Height Requirements
#3 Maybe consider a monorail from Aquarium to Seaport
#4 Focus Public space around Childrens Musuem
#5 Make sure the roads and infrastructre are really layedout for easy access for Traffic.
Let the private investments roll in at their own costs overtime.



Over time with easy T access near the city...........The area would have evolved.

 

[GW2500]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^^ I agree that both Kendall and South Boston Seaport, may never be architecturally stunning, but I see both having a lot of people walking on those sidewalks. Actually both kind of already do. And with foot traffic, good urban things, eventually tend to pop up.

 

[joebos]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I dont think the Seaport complaints are about it not being "architecturally stunning". That's such an ignorant thing to say, as if architects and planners only care about making award-winning projects. This is about poor planning.

 

[whighlander]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I dont think the Seaport complaints are about it not being "architecturally stunning". It's about poor planning.

Joe:

Just as stroll through Kendall in 1990 would not have given you a clue of what is there now -- let alone what is likely to be there in 2020

So today a stroll through the SPID will not give you any real sense of what is possible in 20 years

Remember that 20 years (e.g. a couple of deelopment cycles) is the time frame that matters -- it wont really matter whether Vertex is still there in 2030. What will matter is that the waterfront is active with people both working, relaxing and living (mostly in luxury housing) and that further back - in the less high profile and less public parts of the SPID and along its fringes -- there is a neighborhood and an viable economic district. It would be nice if some college or universiy got directly involved in the Innovation part -- with a comimitment a bit larger than the 3500 sq.ft. of Babson.

If I was to recommend 3 things now for the future from the infrastructure perspective:
1) highst priority -- Tunnel under D- Street to get rid of a Huntington Ave bype of transit / traffic problem
2) direct connection from Silver Line Way station to / from the Ted Williams Tunnel
3) underground station for the BCEC
4) work to convince all of the developers to incorporate underground Silver Line tunnels / stations / pedestrian connections when they are digging basemants and especially underground parking garages

5) And then in the spirit of F-line and some of the other wild transit ideas -- mid 2020's statt thinking about a branch of the Red Line with a station in the middle of the SPID continuing on via downtown Southy and a tunnel under Dorchester Bayand to eventually end-up down by the Bayside Expo -- that Red Line branch would provide a critical link between the development area around the Bayside and UMass Boston to the SPID and a few stops later you would be in Kendall

 

[GW2500]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I dont think the Seaport complaints are about it not being "architecturally stunning". That's such an ignorant thing to say, as if architects and planners only care about making award-winning projects. This is about poor planning.

Um so, it's not about planners not doing award winning projects (ie good planning), its about poor planning. Not sure you make sense, but what I'm saying is both will have a fair amount of foot traffic and that can really help out an area even if the buildings are mediocre at best.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

So, does anyone know definitively, does Cambridge give tax breaks to any of these companies? Have they ever?

 

[whighlander]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

So, does anyone know definitively, does Cambridge give tax breaks to any of these companies? Have they ever?

John -- to which companies are you reffering:
a) owners of the buildings
b) tennants in the buildings-- very unlikely

In the case of (a) -- I would suspect that there might be some agreements similar to the Boston agreement with the developers of the Pru -- they didn't get assessed on the basis of square feet at first -- for some time the owners needed only to pay some % of the Net Revenue

For instance there used to be a significant amount of MIT usage of Tech Square -- since MIT developed and originally owned the buildings through its captive realestate operation -- I don't think that entities such as the AI Lab paid anyone for their space -- i would assime that MIT's agreement with Cambrdge excluded the sq. ft. occupied by MIT in Tech Square when the tax was being computed

 

[Sicilian]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

To answer John's question fairly, we need an apples-to-apples comparison of commercial properties -- not examining properties owned/developed by a tax-exempt institution such as MIT or Harvard.

My understanding is that Boston is legendary in the generous number of 121A tax-exemptions and other tax schemes (incremental financing, etc.) extended to commercial properties. Reading press accounts, the BRA provides one set of rationales for providing tax exemptions during years of booming markets, and an entirely different set of rationales in years experiencing down markets. Tax exemptions (and the "blighted district" designation) in Boston have no clear correlation in application to actual blighted areas or areas desperate for investment.

Example "tax incremental financing" approval on Fan Pier from 4/11 BRA Board minutes :

Request authorization to recommend the designation of Vertex
Pharmaceutical’s for the construction of office, research
laboratory and ground floor retail/restaurant located at 50
Northern Avenue and office, research laboratory and ground
floor retail/restaurant and day care located at 11 Fan Pier
Boulevard as a Certified Project to the Massachusetts Economic
Assistance Coordinating Council; to petition the City Council
for approval of a Tax Increment Financing Agreement; and to
approve the Tax Increment Financing Plan.

From this PDF download: http://bostonredevelopmentauthority... Board Meeting Agenda for 4-14-11 (draft).pdf

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Its really tough to compare Non-profit institutions of MIT & Harvard to tax financing agreement between a private development of Fan Pier.

MIT & Harvard are Non-profits institutions that invest in Research & Development to there community.
I can agree that Non-profit agencies need to be re-examined by our IRS about Non-profit salaries but besides that Harvard and MIT are moving us into the 21st century in bio-technology and other major events.

Its really hard to justify giving Fallon tax money to help relocate a customer that was already based in Cambridge Ma. Why didnt Fallon entice Vertex by lowering his rents. All I see is Deval Patrick and Mayor Menino enriching their own personal agenda for the Unions so they get votes by 2012. This is why the planning is so fucked. No leadership.

My point on this board is everybody is like SPID will be the next Kendall. You call that success for the most prime real estate next to the city? How much taxpayers money is going to fund the foundation of SPID in the end?

 

[greenwayguy1982]

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^^
Rifleman, you seem stuck in attack mode over the use of taxpayer dollars on the Innovation District while extolling the virtues of the way Harvard and MIT do research in Cambridge. I love Harvard and MIT as much as the next guy, but $26 million in TIF financing for Vertex, which is a private for-profit that funds its own research, pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions or billions of NIH, NSF, and other taxpayer-funded grants that MIT and Harvard have gotten over the past 5 years and applied to their research. And I'm certainly glad that they did - I'm not taking a stand on whether the use of taxpayer funds for R&D is a worthy cause, I'm just saying that your nearly pathological fixation on the use of TIF financing for the new Vertex HQ needs to be compared to the magnitude of taxpayer subsidy that flow to the institutions that keep Kendall Square full also.

If you're against the use of taxpayer dollars to fund private research (whether non-profit or for-profit, it's all private), that's cool, but don't get all hot and bothered about a relatively small sum that went to support the Vertex buildings and conveniently overlook an order-of-magnitude greater sum of taxpeyer money that funds the Cambridge institutions (whose combined endowment is um...$35 billion....$40 billion?)