Cambridge school construction costs soar | Its future uncertain, BPDA struggles to recruit | The strange State House impasse over sports betting | About Contrarian Boston
Stumpy towers: Proposed “baseline” heights for new downtown Boston buildings top out at 155 feet
It looks like the sky is no longer the limit when it comes to tower heights in Boston.
With the 61-story One Dalton and the 60-story Millenium Tower, it seemed like Boston had finally shaken its longstanding uneasiness with skyline topping towers.
Apparently not.
Arthur Jemison, Boston’s new chief planner and director of the Boston Planning and Development Authority, is gearing up to pull the trigger on new zoning rules for downtown Boston.
And the draft plan, which has been in the works for a couple years now, calls for a 155-foot “baseline” for new downtown office, condo and hotel buildings.
Developers could go higher than that – in some cases up to 700 to 800 feet – if they agree to pay into a new “public benefit fund.”
But that’s under the more aggressive - or height friendly - of two zoning scenarios the BPDA is eyeing.
Under a second option, baseline heights would be lowered to 100 feet in Chinatown and the Wharf district by the harbor, and 125 feet in the Ladder District near Downtown Crossing. It’s also not clear how much higher new buildings in some of these downtown neighborhoods could go even if the developers agree to fork over additional money to city coffers.
Add in the blocks near the Common, subject to a state shadow law that regulates how much shade that can be cast on the nation’s oldest park by new high-rises, and half or more of the downtown could be off-limits for new towers.
So, which plan will Jemison go with? Stay tuned.
Hard sell? New Boston development chief scrambles to recruit candidates for understaffed agency
Jemison, the city’s new chief planner development czar, has an even more pressing problem than the height of new downtown towers, and that’s a shortage of planners and other staff.
In fact, the agency doesn’t have enough personnel at this point to handle the 42 million square feet in major development proposals currently under review at the BPDA.
However, down at least 30 positions right now, Jemison’s push to hire the “best and brightest” to work at the agency faces a major challenge. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s long-standing pledge to “abolish” the agency - blamed for the leveling of the West End in the late 1950s and other early mistakes - has created a significant disincentive for anyone considering taking a job at the agency.
Jemison, in a recent chat with local developers organized by industry group NAIOP Massachusetts, attempted to address some of those concerns, saying new hires will have the potential to take part in a revamp of how the city plans for and regulates new development.
How that will actually shake out, though, remains to be seen, with Jemison providing few specific details on what will happen with the BPDA and whether some of its functions might be divided up between one or more new agencies.
That said, new hires will have “permanent” jobs, Jemison said, apparently trying to quell the typical first hired, last fired concerns new planners might have with an agency whose exact future and role is uncertain.
New hires will have a “front row seat, and in some cases the driver’s seat” on pushing the city’s new development agenda forward, he said.
The biggest school construction budget blowout yet
This time the big budget buster is in Cambridge, where city administrators are grappling with a more than $49 million overrun in plans to revamp the Tobin Montessori and Vassal Lane Upper Schools campus, according to the Cambridge Day.
City officials are now looking to borrow the additional money, which will drive the total cost of the project to nearly $300 million.
In a memo, City Manager Louis DePasquale is blaming the added costs, among other things, on “supply chain shortages and higher than average construction escalation within the public bidding domain.”
Some bids came 50 percent over budget, though the decision to do early bids on “structural steel, concrete foundation system and geothermal well drilling … resulted in bids within our expected budget,” DePasquale wrote.
Cambridge City Council expected to take up the request for the extra $49 million when it meets Monday evening.
The Cambridge school budget buster comes on the heels of similar issues with plans for new schools in Worcester and Lowell.
Worcester is scrambling to come up with another $23 million to pay for a new Doherty Memorial High School, which has pushed the price-tag to a hefty $316 million. The Worcester overrun, in turn, comes atop a $38.5 million cost overrun on the new Lowell High School.
Is it money or morals? The big question behind State House sports betting standoff
As state lawmakers haggle over a sports’ betting bill, wagering on college games has emerged as a potential deal breaker.
State senators, with backing from local universities, have insisted collegiate games be off limits, while House Speaker Ron Mariano has been equally adamant that college games need to be part of the betting action.
All of which begs the question as to what’s driving this opposition from local college presidents?
Yes, there are very likely practical and moral reservations, but we’ve heard those concerns before from the professional sports leagues, who over the past decade, have reversed course and gone from high-minded denunciations to avid participants in a dizzying array of sports gambling partnerships and platforms.
More to the point, some of the big NCAA sports conferences – think Big Ten and Southeastern Conference – have cut their own sports betting deals valued in the $10 million and $20 million a range.
Could money be the key here?
We’ll find out soon enough, with House and Senate negotiators vowing to find a way to hammer out an agreement and get a sports betting bill on Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk soon.
And given the legislative session ends next month, there’s little time to lose.
Quick hits:
Don’t you think? “Chair Asks Poftak, T Workers To “Do More” On Safety” State House News Service
Given home prices and rents, no shocker here: “Poll indicates 25% of Mass. residents are moving or thinking about it” CommonWealth Magazine
Putin fries: Siberian businessman replaces McDonald’s in Moscow, other locations with “Vkusno & tochka,” or “Tasty & that’s it.” “McDonald’s in Russia Reopens Under New Ownership” The Wall Street Journal
Maybe Blake needs a little time away from the AI: “Google Sidelines Engineer Who Claims Its A.I. Is Sentient” The New York Times
What is Contrarian Boston?
I have fielded emails over the past couple of months 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.