Contrarian Boston/Dec. 17
In today’s edition: Romney-like contender eyeing governor’s race | Lab developers face NIMBY suburbs | Marty’s big night out | Globe’s strange omission on ski-resort savior | About Contrarian Boston | Seeking writers/contributors
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Walsh keeps rumor mill grinding
What better way to top off a campaign swing through Massachusetts than a night out at The ‘Quin House, a posh Back Bay watering hole for the state’s political glitterati?
U.S. Labor Secretary and former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh made an evening appearance at the exclusive Back Bay members-only club earlier this week after a press conference in Springfield.
Oh, sorry, we forgot that Marty isn’t running for anything – at least not officially – decrying in Springfield all the “speculation” about his political ambitions.
Still, Walsh’s appearance at the Commonwealth Avenue club – which bills itself as a “playground for the mind and senses” where members “mingle in elegant comfort” - is further fueling talk Walsh is seriously eyeing a run for the corner office.
As it happens, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley were also there hobnobbing at the club the same night as Walsh, though as the story goes, they were all there separately.
We’re told that Walsh didn’t appear to be there to raise money – after all, with more than $5 million in in his campaign war chest, he has a “barrel of money,” one politico tells us.
Maybe he was just buttering up the swells at The ‘Quin, a more subtle form of fundraising, though I guess it’s always possible the labor secretary was leading a snap inspection of working conditions at the Commonwealth Avenue club.
And what about that appearance earlier in the day in Springfield? Walsh was there to talk up the potential for billions in the new federal infrastructure bill for Western Massachusetts to Boston rail service.
Hmm. Unless he forgot, Pete Buttigieg is transportation secretary. But they are great talking points for a noncandidate candidate for governor, playing to the hometown crowd.
And on the Republican side …
Industrial real estate magnate Benjamin Butcher is the latest name to pop up as a potential gubernatorial contender on the Republican side.
Head of Boston-based STAG Industrial, Butcher is described as a Mitt Romney like finance guy, who the saner elements of the state GOP are reportedly looking at to give their party a chance next fall.
STAG’s business is acquiring and managing warehouse and distribution complexes, along with other industrial properties. It may sound boring, but it’s the hottest business around right now, with Amazon and now major brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart and Target on the hunt for warehousing space to accommodate all those online orders.
If Butcher were to jump in, he’d have to face Geoff Diehl, who lost miserably in his 2018 bid to oust Elizabeth Warren from the Senate.
Only the Boston Herald thinks Diehl, a former GOP state representative from Whitman and unrepentant Trumpie, can win the governor’s race.
Amazingly, Trump’s endorsement, in a straight news story, was presented as a “big deal endorsement” – not the kiss of death it is in these parts.
That’s a sad commentary on the state of the Herald under the ownership of newspaper vulture Alden Capital.
Trouble ahead for booming life sciences sector?
Woburn neighbors of the Showcase Cinemas complex off I-95 are freaking out over a Davis Cos. proposal that would redevelop 26 acres at the sprawling theater site into biomedical and high-tech research space.
Right now, it’s an empty overflow parking lot, and, with the state of the movie theater business, well let’s say it’s not getting that much use now.
“They don’t even know what kind of substances are being put in the air,” said a mechanical systems contractor who lives in a residential neighborhood that abuts the Showcase Cinemas site, the Daily Times Chronicle reports.
Heavens, is the Wuhan Institute of Virology opening up a satellite campus next door?
Well, no one is at the moment. Woburn city officials are still working on the zoning rules for the development of the site.
If this is the way it’s going to be every time a developer proposes a life-sciences complex in Boston’s suburbs, then we are in trouble.
Handy stat: the vacancy rate for lab space in Boston has is now less than 1 percent, commercial real estate firm Colliers reports.
Key fact goes missing in Globe story on ski-resort savior
That would be the not so minor detail that Les Otten, the would-be savior of the Balsams Resort in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, is a former co-owner of the Red Sox.
Now Otten, who built and later lost a ski resort empire under a mountain of debt, did sell his stake in the ownership group that owns the team in 2007.
But Otten was no silent investor. Rather, he was there at the creation so to speak, part of the investment group led by John Henry and Les Werner that bought the Sox for $660 million in early 2002.
Henry, of course, now owns the Boston Globe as well. It’s why this connection matters.
So then, in light of this, what to make of the piece?
We learn that Otten, on a mission of “redemption” of sorts for his past business failures, has finally landed a $125 million financing deal with a nonprofit lender based in Louisiana, seven long years after first taking on the project of reviving the legendary Granite State resort.
Given Otten’s contacts presumably include the billionaire Henry, who has a track record of taking on struggling properties and turning them around, that seems odd.
Coos County will have to finalize the deal, but we are told the relatively poor jurisdiction in northern New Hampshire “would have no financial obligation to investors.”
Yet, two lines later, we learn of a separate $30 million bond offering that would be backed by “special tax assessment financing district.”
In that case, the county, town, state or some other local entity may very well be on the hook if Otten’s revival of the Balsams goes south, but no details are offered.
Go figure.
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.