Why South Station Tower Is Dead In The Water
By Scott Van Voorhis
Banker & Tradesman Columnist
Today
Of all the grandiose development ideas kicking around Boston, the transformation of dowdy old South Station into a gleaming sky-rise complex and 21st century transportation hub may hold the most promise.
Too bad it will never get built.
After recent signs the redevelopment of the 1890s rail station was finally poised to push forward following decades of delays, plans have gone into a deep freeze again with the economic downturn.
A year after a firm emerged to redevelop the U.S. Postal Service mail-sorting plant that abuts South Station, there?s no sign of any proposal. Nor are there any signs of life when it comes to plans by a Texas developer to build a skyscraper over the rail station itself.
City Hall, meanwhile, has scuttled plans to do a master plan for redeveloping the area, while one key state official is now predicting a decade-long delay.
Things That Make You Go Hmm
My judgment on the project?s future may sound harsh. But someone will have to convince me that, after more than 20 years of talk, something other than just another classic Hub development pipedream is taking shape here.
In a city where the development bureaucracy has a hard time getting even simple, slam dunk projects done, this one simply has too many moving parts to it.
And it?s doubly too bad given, of all the big development plans gathering dust out there, this one may actually make the most sense for Boston and the region?s future. At stake are billions in new development and the chance to dramatically expand the rail capacity of the region?s top transportation hub as well
?We feel it?s the best location in the city,? said David Perry, a top executive at Hines Development, which has spent the last decade pushing plans for a South Station tower.
The idea of transforming South Station into the center of a new mega-development is hardly new, having been kicked around since the 1970s.
There have been plans for a tower over the station itself ? the Texas developer Hines and a local partner control the development rights ? since the 1980s.
The tower plan looked like it was moving closer to reality, until it lost a major equity partner as the economy began to slow more than a year ago.
Plans to move the postal plant ? and free up acres of valuable development land next door to South Station itself along the Fort Point Channel ? appeared to be bucking the trends.
International real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle emerged with a deal to develop the postal plant site back in the spring of 2008. Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other city powerbrokers lined up behind efforts of postal officials to secure a site in South Boston on which to build a new mail-sorting facility.
The outlines of a multibillion-dollar development plan began to emerge. It was a plan that would involve not only millions of square feet of new offices and residential units, but also several new tracks at South Station to support a growing commuter rail network.
Meanwhile, relocating the mail plant would also provide a boost to those long-stalled plans by Hines to build a skyscraper over the station itself.
Jones Lang has gone silent on the deal, while city officials have scuttled plans to hire a consultant to draw up a master plan for development along the site. Let?s just say as I was putting this column together, no one was rushing to the phone to offer any explanations.
Not A Fatal Derailment?
While officials directly involved generally aren?t talking, the line from sympathetic observers is that we are looking at another delay, not a fatal derailment, of plans to transform South Station into the city?s newest mega-development.
State Rep. Brian Wallace (D-South Boston), acknowledges it may now take a decade to move the mail plant and redevelop the site. Vivien Li, head of the Boston Harbor Association, offers a similar, though slightly shorter timeline.
Both are as good as it comes when judging the potential of new development: Li from her perch as a waterfront activist, and Wallace, whose neighborhood has become a magnet for developers of all stripes.
?It?s slow moving, but it?s still moving forward,? Wallace said. ?It?s a very long process.?
That said, I am not nearly as optimistic about the prospects for a South Station revamp.
While it may be one of the most deserving projects out there, it presents the kind of complicated regulatory and financial challenges that, at least here in Boston, often make new development plans untenable.
It took more than 25 years to get construction moving on Fan Pier, thanks in part to a complex state review process for waterfront projects. Now, at least for the foreseeable future, we are looking at a single office building.
But that was child?s play compared to the challenges that come with redeveloping South Station.
For starters, nothing can happen until a complicated land deal is worked out, one that will allow the Postal Service to move its South Station plant to a site in South Boston near the Reserved Channel.
While the political bigwigs are starting to line up behind this one, the acid test will be the neighborhood?s reaction. So far, the folks in Southie have yet to be briefed on the plan, but I can?t see the prospect of tractor trailers packed with mail descending upon the neighborhood at all hours being an easy sell.
But if we get that far ? and that?s a big if ? the would-be redeveloper of the South Station mail plant faces the daunting task of winning regulatory approval to build millions of square feet of new development.
Here again, the South Boston neighborhood will play a big role in negotiations ? the site itself falls within the neighborhood?s borders.
But the postal plant also sits alongside several acres of waterfront land along the Fort Point Channel. In some respects, that?s both a developer?s dream and a potential nightmare, triggering a complex state review and restrictions on height and density that a proposal a few blocks inland wouldn?t face.
All of which is too bad. If you were going to pick a single site in Boston that made the most sense for large, intensive development, this is it.
It?s right on top of a rail, subway and bus hub, opening up the possibility of car-free living for what could be a whole new city neighborhood.
So I guess I am hoping against hope that my gloomy prognostications are wrong: that this is one development project that will eventually pull into the station, albeit a few decades late.
But frankly, I?m skeptical.
