Northland Investment got some bad press today in the Globe, regarding a property in New Haven CT. I'm posting it here because the Globe mentioned it in context of The Merc project in Waltham:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...controversy/qwLj6XNA2N7fEJw6YUspjP/story.html
I feel the need to rant on some aspects of the reporting.
For professional reasons, I had a tour of that New Haven property in about 2002. It was dreadful by then and had obviously needed many years to get to that state. The owner was The Community Builders in Boston, a/k/a TCB. They were working with HUD and the City to do a tear-down and replacement. Good plan, a decade or more overdue. TCB obviously never pulled it off. My less than full knowledge is that blame can be spread out among TCB, HUD, and the City. TCB sold the property to Northland in 2008.
Northland's general plan is similar to TCB’s old one in broad outlines; move tenants out, build replacement mixed-use mixed-income housing in its place (the location is in very close proximity to Amtrak station, btw).
The Globe links the New Haven story to the Waltham story not only because of the common developer but also because the Northland chairman himself points to The Merc in Waltham as an example of how the New Haven site could come out looking eventually.
The story does have some mea culpa quotes from the Northland chairman. They are acknowledging that they’re struggling with the New Haven property. He also acknowledges that this was their first venture into subsidized housing and that they got in over their heads.
All that’s fair enough. Commence rant (and NO, I have no connection to Northland whatsoever):
First, the article should have clarified that Northland came along in 2008 after a long saga of failure by others. By 2008 this property HAD BEEN in full-on crisis mode for some time.
Second, and speaking as someone in affordable housing, it is wildly insane for ANY developer, no matter how good their track record with unsubsidized housing, to pick this particular nightmare as their first foray into the world of demolishing and replacing HUD-subsidized housing. Did the Globe ask Northland why they did this? And what the hell were HUD and the City thinking to have selected any such developer? Did the Globe ask this? If not, why not? Maybe Northland was the sole bidder by the time 2008 came along? If that is the case, this should be acknowledged, as in “the only ones brave and/or crazy enough to take a shot at it.” Or maybe they just got so enthralled by the post-redevelopment possibilities (which I believe are significant) that they just couldn’t grasp the upfront hurdles (there MUST have been someone on staff screaming “nooooooooo”).
Third, what has been happening since 2008 when Northland bought it? There’s zero chance that their plan was to be still running it in the current format for this long. So clearly we can presume financing challenges and so on, that’s obviously part of it. But again, as someone in affordable housing, a nightmare like Church Street South does NOT get solved without massive infusions of either City, State and/or federal money, because private financing will only be interested in what comes as replacement. Undoing the existing nightmare is far beyond the private sector’s willingness, even with tax credits and so on. Will the Globe get into that aspect of this saga? The Globe should be asking, do HUD, CT, and New Haven REALLY want this horrible mess cleaned up, and do they REALLY care about those tenants, and if so, WTF has been going on for so many years?
Then there’s an apparent gotcha attempt regarding Waltham, as the Globe reporter seems to have brought the New Haven situation to the attention of Waltham building department officials:
Bill Forte, inspector of buildings for the City of Waltham, said he was unaware of Northland’s New Haven property until contacted by the Globe, but he said the city wouldn’t necessarily have denied Northland a permit if it had known about conditions there.
“We don’t discriminate on a person’s past,” Forte said. “We’ve encountered no major problems with the company and the construction thus far.”
One can more or less infer the nature of the Globe’s question, something along the lines of “if you had known about Northland’s New Haven situation during the permitting process for The Merc, would you have issued permits for The Merc?”
Excuse me, but the situation Northland started with in Waltham was radically different than the situation they started with in New Haven. As in being on Mars versus being on Pluto.
And WTF is the Waltham guy going to say now? He’s well past the point of no return on The Merc. Did they think he was going to respond with “Oh gosh dern it, we shoulda coulda woulda told these nasty slumlords to go pound sand and keep their slummifyin’ ways out of Waltham, ayup!! Oh lawdy if only the Globe had let us know in time, dang I hate it when that happens too late!!” I mean, seriously, why would he say anything other than what he said, or words similar?
Lastly, although the Globe article does not come right out and say "watch out Waltham, you've got a notorious slumlord a-building in your town square", there's a clear whiff of that to the entire article.
I think the Church Street South saga in New Haven will have fuck-all to do with The Merc's future in Waltham, unless it somehow were to drag Northland into insolvency. That's unlikely, I'm sure they compartmentalize. Northland's likely to have the sorts of profits rolling in on The Merc that they couldn't turn it into Church Street South if they for some reason set their minds to it.
/rant
I feel marginally better now.
