Life-science mania | Baker's bonus pay win | Downsize Logan? | Welcome to the Wu Era |
Another Boston life sciences project, this time in Fort Point
Just when you couldn’t possibly squeeze another major life sciences project into the city, along comes a developer with a plan to build a new lab complex.
BentallGreenOak filed plans Friday afternoon to tear down a six-story parking garage at 17-31 Farnsworth St. in the Fort Point Channel neighborhood and replace with a four-story lab complex.
Along with eliminating the 361-car garage, the new lab complex will also have no onsite parking. While the developer is pitching this as an environmental benefit, we suspect some local businesses and residents in the parking-starved neighborhood may have a different view.
Fort Point is just the latest neighborhood in Boston where lab developers are moving in, with six million square feet under construction or in the works in Fenway, plus three million square feet more in Allston Brighton.
Baker wins standoff over $500 million in essential worker bonuses
Turns out there will be no wonky 28-member commission after all to hash over the details of pandemic bonuses for front-line workers.
When the Legislature passed the bonuses in December, Baker pushed back hard over plans for the panel – which would have included environmental groups and Common Cause - arguing it is more important get the money out quickly than spend months debating it.
From there, the story completely fell out of the headlines and out of the news altogether, a sad commentary on the state of local media coverage. After all, what could be more important than $500 to $2,000 bonus checks for the grocery store clerks, nursing home attendants, and other workers who helped get us through the pandemic?
In the end, State House leaders opted not to override the governor’s nixing of the commission.
Now the ball is in Baker’s court. And after pushing for speed in paying out the bonuses, it’s now up to our lame duck governor to deliver.
Latest demand by climate activists: Downsize Logan
We did a double-take when we spotted this piece in CommonWealth Magazine calling for a dramatic throttling back in the number of flights from Logan.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s Green New Deal has a fatal flaw, letting the biggest polluter off the hook, with no mention of the jets taking off at the airport, contends Joseph Nevins, a Vassar College professor who wrote the CM piece.
In fact, Logan, which burns through hundreds of millions of gallons of jet fuel year, is already implicated in “1,128 excess fatalities” from its contribution to global warming, according to Nevins.
“Any Green New Deal true to its name would reach an inescapable conclusion: Logan Airport must be radically downsized,” he writes.
No matter that Wu is pushing ahead with ambitious plans to tackle emissions from office towers and buildings in Boston, something that already has the business community, if not on edge, then at full attention.
The good professor, though, doesn’t offer any guidance on just how to embark on this downsizing. Shuttering terminals? Banning vacation travel? Bringing back trans-Atlantic steamships?
File under: Ivory tower calculations.
Boston development: The Wu Era has begun
Ten different firms are competing for a low-paying but potentially hugely influential gig, one that could help shape the future of development in Boston.
Ranging from small local planning outfits firms to big names like Ernst & Young, the companies submitted bids Friday afternoon at City Hall in hopes of landing one of three consulting gigs worth $150,000. Four are women or minority-owned businesses.
The Boston Planning and Development Agency is seeking help in assessing the leasing and, in some cases, the development potential of the 13 million square feet the agency owns across Boston. The Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park in South Boston and the Charlestown Navy Yard are the centerpieces of the BPDA’s real estate empire, but the agency also owns properties scattered across several other city neighborhoods.
The focus, though is, not on ginning up huge new development projects, a spokesperson for the agency noted in an email, but rather on things like affordable housing, creating more community and open space, and climate resiliency.
All of which certainly sounds in line with the vision Wu has outlined.
Here’s the list:
1. HR&A Advisors, Inc
2. Greystone Management Solutions
3. RKG Associates
4. Karl F. Seidman Consulting (Partnered with Karp Strategies)
5. RND Consultants, Inc.
6. Harvest Capital Partners LLC
7. James Lima Planning & Development
8. Davenport Companies
9. Stantec
10. Ernst & Young LLP
Quick Hits
-- From the higher-ed front: “WPI president leaving to return to NASA.” (WBJ)
-- We could be looking at record snow fall over the weekend, even worse than the blizzards of 2003 and 1978 (AccuWeather).
-- We’re now at the highest storm alert level, according to UH’s French Toast Alert System (Universal Hub).
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple weeks asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.
Contrarian Boston seeks contributors
Have a news tip? Is there an issue you would like to see explored? Interested in writing up a news item or short opinion piece? As Contrarian Boston gets on its feet, I would like to add more news and a wider range of commentary as well.
Intrigued? Drop me a line at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
Thanks for reading and see you Monday. Stay warm!