It’s time again for another turkey list, projects that deserve to be put out of their misery, but, for whatever reason, just keep hanging on – and in some cases, keep taking our money as well.
This year Worcester Airport, which has a million-dollar payroll but no airlines, tops a list that includes a failed condo plan in downtown Wellesley and Don Chiofaro’s billion-dollar, twin-tower pipe dream in Boston.
If you are looking for a turkey shoot, there’s no better place than Massachusetts, where impossibly grandiose or simply ill-conceived projects never die. Rather, they just keep getting permit extensions, or better yet, public dollars from one of our many bloated state authorities.
Frankly, there are just too many hapless development projects and government boondoggles to pick from, and not enough space to do them all justice. But I am always happy to give it a try.
Worcester Airport
Since Direct Air pulled out earlier this spring, Worcester has the distinction of having an airport without an airline. But that has left Massport, the state authority that owns Worcester Airport, strangely determined to throw good money after bad, which typically happens when you are spending someone else’s money, not your own.
The state authority plans to continue to carry the airport’s million-dollar payroll, with no plans to scale back, even though it acknowledges landing a new carrier could take two years. If that wasn’t enough, this is just the latest in a decades-long series of setbacks for Worcester Airport, which appears to snag a new airline every few years only to promptly lose it.
The airlines are voting with their feet here, yet Massport contends Worcester Airport may still come in handy someday as an overflow facility for an ever-busier Logan. Good luck with that!
Downtown-Style Condos – In The Suburbs
OK, this turkey is not just a single overstuffed project, but a whole flock of dim-witted developments.
Back during the bubble, some overly enthusiastic developers got the smart idea they could fetch downtown-Boston prices by building deluxe, urban-style condos in the suburbs. The theory appeared to be something like “Build it, give it some granite countertops and stainless steel appliances and suckers will pay downtown prices for it.”
If you want to see what happened to this brilliant idea, look no farther than Wellesley Square and the site of the old Wellesley Inn. The inn is long gone, replaced by a hole in the ground, but there’s no sign of the million-dollar condos that were supposed to take shape there. The Nouvelle at the Natick mall avoided being shuttered only after developers slashed prices by hundreds of thousands of dollars. And two different new, urban-style condo projects in Natick Center both wound up getting foreclosed on.
Liberty Mutual’s Expensive Digs
OK, tax breaks are necessary sometimes to spur development, especially in hard-hit urban areas where investors might need coaxing.
But did Liberty Mutual really need a $46.5 million tax break to build a new headquarters in the Back Bay, where the streets are literally paved with gold for savvy real estate investors? For a company that paid its now retired chief executive $50 million a year?
It’s unusual for a project that actually got built to land on my turkey list, but this is an outrageous giveaway that negates any gain to the city’s skyline.
Vicksburg Square
This turkey just got cooked, after voters at town meetings in Ayer and Harvard rejected a proposal to turn the old barracks complex in the center of Devens into affordable housing targeted at veterans and seniors.
It is the second time voters have rejected plans to redevelop the historic complex, which was once the Main Street of the old Fort Devens, prompting the latest developer, Trinity Financial, to pull out after two years of failed efforts to win over local voters. It’s a sad fate for an historic building and, in all fairness, the real turkeys here are the developers, who keep pushing unpopular plans – not to mention voters who can’t see the bigger picture.
Don Chiofaro’s Pipe Dream
There’s no chance the International Place developer Don Chifaro will get a chance to make his mark again on the hub skyline as long as Mayor Thomas M. Menino is in office.
Chiofaro’s plans would be a tough sell to any mayor, calling for a pair of twin towers that would overshadow both the new Greenway and nearby Boston Harbor. But instead of talking softly and carrying a big stick, as TR famously advised, Chiofaro acted like a bull in a china shop, deliberately picking a fight with Menino, a particularly thin-skinned pol.
Of course it’s Menino who effectively controls development in Boston, not Chiofaro. Bad move.
Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
