Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino loves to play favorites when it comes to developers, with the mayor’s builder friends too often entering City Hall with project plans and exiting with tax breaks in hand.
Forget about blowing up the Boston Redevelopment Authority, a favorite topic among Mayor-elect Marty Walsh and other candidates during the mayoral campaign this fall.
If he does nothing else in his first few months in office, Walsh should put an end to the cronyism of the Menino years and level the playing field for Boston developers.
In fact, if Walsh wants a good place to start, he might try throwing a well-deserved lifeline to Fenway Center developer John Rosenthal.
Not exactly one of the mayor’s favored, tight-lipped yes-men, the colorful Rosenthal appears to be getting the runaround from City Hall over a badly needed tax break for his proposed 1.3 million-square-foot residential, office and retail development.
At stake are long-standing plans to build a 27-story tower over the Turnpike by Fenway Park, covering over the ugly highway canyon that separates the ballpark from Kenmore Square.
Unequal Treatment
So what does Rosenthal want?
Maybe best known for his billboards alongside the Pike by Fenway decrying the carnage wreaked by hand guns, the activist and residential builder basically wants the same tax deal City Hall recently doled out to Millennium Partners to help it revive the long-stalled Filene’s redevelopment.
Rosenthal has put in an application to city officials for a tax break in the exact same amount doled out to Millennium, $7.8 million, saying spiraling construction costs have made the already costly Pike spanning apartment high-rise even more expensive to build.
For anyone who has followed construction trends in the slightest, there’s no surprise there.
Nor should there be any surprise that Rosenthal’s proposed air-rights tower might need some extra help.
After all, a who’s who of big developers over the years have tried and failed to build over the ugly Turnpike canyon that bisects Boston, including Arthur Wynn and even Millennium.
But what is disturbing here is the frosty reception Rosenthal is getting from City Hall compared to the same $7.8 million request by Millennium.
After taking over the troubled Filene’s redevelopment last year, Millennium’s request for a multimillion-dollar tax break was greeted with open arms by Menino and city officials – and granted swiftly, mind you, as well.
Millennium took over the project in April and by August had pretty much nailed down the deal, if not before.
It was even more amazing given the project’s previous developer, John Hynes, had his own request for that same city tax deal rejected, leading to the sale of the development to Millennium.
Rosenthal, by contrast, applied months ago for his tax break for Fenway Center. After hearing nothing back, he was reduced to complaining to one of the local papers.
In Tom Menino’s Boston, that’s practically the kiss of death.
The Crony Club
So what gives?
The difference, of course, is that Millennium and principal Anthony Pangaro is an FOM, Friend of Menino.
Sure, there is probably good reason for the mayor to appreciate the high-powered Boston builder.
After all, Millennium, with its very successful Ritz-Carlton towers and related development, helped drive a stake through the old Combat Zone, long a major goal of Boston’s longest serving mayor.
But as petty as it seems, there is a stylistic issue here as well, which is both tragic and a bit comic at the same time.
Menino’s developer buddies keep their mouths shut and just about run away when reporters call. They may be putting up all the money and taking all the business risk. But they know well enough to give all credit to the mayor to avoid even the tiniest pin prick that might puncture his thin skin.
When’s the last time, for example, you read Joe Fallon, Boston Properties or Millennium spouting off about anything in the local press, even, for that matter, their own projects?
They don’t because they know that’s just not how to get ahead – or get anything done – in Tom Menino’s Boston.
Piss off the mayor or say the wrong thing and suddenly all permitting activity and reviews of your project go dead over at City Hall.
So FOM developers keep their mouths shut, praise the mayor when questioned, and quietly pick up their permits, approvals and tax breaks, leaving the talking to others.
Unfortunately, it’s lesson that I think some developers, natural born showmen and promoters, just can’t grasp.
Certainly Rosenthal, with his attention-grabbing Pike billboards, falls into that group of builders who just don’t have the knack for being dull, grey and boring.
Sadly, that was Hynes’ problem. The grandson of one of Boston’s better mayors and son of the famed local newscaster Jack Hynes, John Hynes never passed down a chance to talk to a reporter about whatever project he was working on.
In the end, it landed Hynes on the mayor’s **** list, which turned into big trouble when ambitious plans to redevelop the Filene’s store and build a tower fell into trouble with the Great Recession.
The mayor watched Hynes sink, maybe much in the same way he’s watching Rosenthal flail about right now with Fenway Center.
Yet there is something really wrong with this picture. Boston shouldn’t be a town where major developments live or die depending on petty mayoral grievances or the personal quirks of a developer.
At a time when housing is desperately needed, Rosenthal’s Fenway Center project has the potential to add 500 new rentals to the market in Boston.
That’s what really counts here. And hopefully Walsh, when he take the reins at City Hall early next year, will say enough already to such insider nonsense.
Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
