| Harvard’s skeptical neighbors | Towering prices | Romney’s moment | Boston’s legal woes | Herald shocker | About Contrarian Boston
Malaysian investor pushing revival of Mashpee Wampanoag casino plan?
It looks like the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and their investors may be much further along in reviving plans for a $1 billion casino resort in Taunton than anyone realizes.
Genting Group, the deep-pocketed Malaysian company, has been huddling with tribal leaders since at least last fall on a bid to resurrect plans for a Southeastern Massachusetts gambling resort, corporate filings show.
The company told shareholders back in September it was “working closely” with the tribe “to essentially design a facility in Massachusetts” in anticipation of a favorable regulatory ruling by the Biden administration.
Given Genting had walked away from its casino deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag in 2019, writing off $425 million in debt, that would have been significant news, especially in Massachusetts.
But it was never reported here – well until now, in this space, that is. In fact, word of the September meeting, held virtually in company offices in Kuala Lumpur and broadcast over a Malaysian website, did not make it across the Pacific.
It was only in late December the local press briefly touched upon the possibility the casino deal might be back on the table.
That’s when the Biden administration’s U.S. Interior Department, as Genting had anticipated, reinstated the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Taunton reservation rights, while, in theory, opening the door again to a potential casino on the land.
Still, it could prove to be fool’s gold. The Taunton neighbors who sued successfully back in 2016 to stop construction of the casino have just filed a new lawsuit in federal court.
Stay tuned - more here on Wednesday.
Harvard’s Allston expansion: No love from the neighbors
Harvard’s latest big development project in the neighborhood is facing a barrage of complaints from its would-be Allston neighbors.
The university’s proposed 900,000-square-foot Enterprise Research Campus doesn’t have enough green space, affordable housing units, or public transit options, among other problems, Allston neighborhood groups are telling City Hall.
A piecemeal planning process that doesn’t take into account the entire 40-acre project site – let alone dozens of other acres in Allston where Harvard may be eyeing for development - is another big issue, according to letters submitted by the Harvard Allston Task Force and other neighborhood organizations and posted online Monday afternoon.
Incredibly, Harvard, which is working with construction and development giant Tishman on the research campus project, owns a total of 140 acres across Allston, or roughly a third of the Boston neighborhood.
In their comments, the task force and other organizations stressed they want to see development, but also want to maximize what gets built and the benefits that would flow from it.
“Due to the piecemeal nature of the ERC development … we are unable to adequately assess many aspects of the project because we don’t have a more sufficiently detailed understanding of what comes next in the larger adjacent area … much less the acreage that Harvard owns across our community,” the task force states.
Given Mayor Michelle Wu’s fierce support for planning, planning and more planning and listening to neighborhood concerns, something tells us Harvard and Tishman are going nowhere fast until they can get their Allston neighbors on board.
Check those office tower, lab building prices lately?
It’s not just home prices going up. The prices investors are paying for commercial real estate are also soaring.
And, surprise, surprise, Cambridge and Boston were ground zero for some of the most expensive office and lab deals in the country in 2021, taking the top two spots, CommercialCafe reports.
The $3.4 billion sale of the University Park at MIT portfolio in Cambridge was No. 1 on the list for 2021. The deal also set a new, all-time record, shattering the one held since 2008 by the $2.8 billion sale of the General Motors Building, the online commercial real estate site notes.
The honors for the second most expensive deal in 2021 went to Alexandria Real Estate Equities, which shelled out $1.2 billion for 401 Park in the Fenway’s Landmark Center.
The $825 million sale of the 17-story One Memorial Drive office tower in Cambridge came in at No. 6 on CommercialCafe’s list of the biggest U.S. sales.
By comparison, six of the remaining top ten commercial real estate sales last year hailed from either New York or San Francisco, with one from San Jose.
Herald in disbelief over teacher pay
Ok, we generally like city payroll stories.
After all, somebody has to mind the shop, especially with all the police overtime abuse scandals of the past few years.
But cops claiming to work 100 hours a week is one thing, while teachers who really are putting in those long hours, with no inflated overtime, are quite another.
It’s a distinction the Herald fails to make in this piece on public employee salaries in Boston.
Maybe the Herald should check out teacher salaries in the suburbs, where many teachers pull down well over $100,000 in school districts and with far fewer challenges.
Or, for that matter, what teachers get paid in New York, San Francisco, and every other impossibly expensive city to live in.
“The educators who clock over $100,000 a year are spread out all over the public school system,” the story notes.
Wow, now there’s a shocker.
Does Boston need better lawyers?
That’s our question in wake of Mayor Michelle Wu’s so far unsuccessful attempt to enforce the city’s vaccine mandate when it comes to recalcitrant public employees.
So far, unions representing the city’s firefighters and police have gotten the best of the city in court, convincing a state superior court judge earlier this month to put Boston’s vaccine mandate on hold.
While the overwhelming majority of city employees have been vaccinated, hundreds of those who have refused to comply remain on the payroll.
By contrast, the Baker administration has “won every legal challenge” it has faced to its vaccine mandate for executive office employees, while New York did what Boston has been unable to do, giving the boot to 1,430 city workers who failed to comply, the Globe reports.
What gives?
Romney’s ‘I told you so’ moment
Give credit where credit is due: U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney had Putin’s number more than a decade ago.
During his unsuccessful run for president in 2012, Romney was mocked by President Barack Obama for his proposed get-tough approach to Putin and Russia, which he labeled the country’s top geopolitical challenge.
“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” Obama said during one debate, chiding the former Republican governor from Massachusetts for his supposed Cold War fixation.
But after Putin’s unhinged invasion of Ukraine, who’s laughing now? In fact, Putin’s brutal attempt to dismember a fledgling democracy warrants a reexamination of all the red flags over the past two decades. And there certainly were plenty of warnings, the invasion of Georgia and the vicious campaign in Syria to name two.
Obama had a great line, as political zingers go, but it is not one that has worn particularly well.
Quick Hits
-- The UK's Defense Ministry has a Twitter account that’s providing updates on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Pretty impressive. Scroll down to see its estimates of Russian casualties. Ukraine really is giving them a bloody nose and more, if these numbers are accurate. ... Other good sites to follow for war updates: The Guardian and NYT.
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.