Related: City Planners Screw Up
"Rushing to a standstill; City allowed developers to skirt requirements in stalled $700m Downtown Crossing project" by Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | March 26, 2009
Boston officials, eager to pump new life into the fragile Downtown Crossing neighborhood, set aside key elements of the city's zoning code and overlooked the absence of mandatory developer submissions in accelerating the $700 million commercial and residential project at the old Filene's site.
A Globe review of city files shows that officials forged ahead furiously through the early stages of the market downturn and the credit crunch in late 2007 and early 2008, even allowing the developers to demolish a key city block before filing necessary forms with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, including a required statement of financial interests.
When the credit markets collapsed and the economy imploded in the fall of 2008, the city was left with a massive hole in a high-profile district, one historic building shorn in half, and a wall of another, Filene's, stripped away. The site has sat dormant for the last four months, like a bombed-out block in a war-ravaged city, laying bare a truth about building in Boston: Developers working on private land are under no obligation to rebuild blocks that they have already torn down.
With anger growing among residents and business operators, Mayor Thomas M. Menino has asked city officials to search for ways to resume work at the blighted site.... But in the case of Downtown Crossing, the city does not appear to have much leverage....
The Globe review of public records shows the city has already cut corners repeatedly. The review also found the developers contributed to Menino's campaign fund, a common practice among developers in the city....
Ha-ha, pffft!
The mayor said he had nothing to do with accelerating the Filene's project, and any campaign contributions he received were coincidental....
Ha-ha, pfffffffffffttttt!
John Palmieri, executive director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city planning agency, said that even if every step had been followed to the letter by the agency and the agency had scrutinized the project's finances more closely, the result arguably could have been the same. He said there was no way the agency could have anticipated the economic recession that halted progress on the project....
(Blog editor incredulously shaking his head)
