The Boston Redevelopment Authority is preparing to yank development permits from a stalled 85-unit residential project in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood.
BRA spokeswoman Susan Eslbree told Banker & Tradesman the authority sought to pull an LLC controlled by New York developer Martin Oliner off Pier 5, a 3.8-acre waterfront parcel situated in the Charlestown Navy Yard, after Oliner defaulted on a $260,000 predevelopment payment. The BRA has been seeking payment from Oliner since April, Elsbree said.
The redevelopment of Pier 5, a decrepit concrete structure that juts into Boston Harbor, has been in play in one form or another since the 1970s. Oliner’s group acquired development interests on the pier, as well as several other Navy Yard parcels, from a bankrupt Saudi-backed group that had bought out legendary Boston developer Ted Raymond.
Oliner and the BRA did battle in court in the early part of the decade, sparring over development fees. A 2004 settlement sped the construction of apartments along First Ave. in the Navy Yard, while pulling Oliner’s group off two parcels now controlled by the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. It also allowed Oliner to seek permits for a five-story building containing 85 condominiums and 10,000 square feet of retail on Pier 5.
Boston’s luxury condo boom came and went without any action on the pier’s aging pilings, which abut the Flagship Wharf luxury condo development and feature sweeping views of the city skyline. The agreement required Oliner to make four pre-development payments of $260,000 each to the BRA. His group made the first two payments, but a lengthy state permitting process caused the Pier 5 project to miss the housing market. So when the third payment came due in April, Oliner backed out.
“This site has been subject to back and forth since the ’70s,” Elsbree said. “This project has been decades in the making, and it’s time to move forward. He owed a payment from April. We’ve been [notifying] him that we’d come to this point.”
Elsbree said the BRA would like to see development along the likes of the North End’s Battery Wharf on Pier 5.
“From a planning perspective, this is a historic pier in desperate need of rehabilitation, while the public doesn’t have access to an important link in the waterfront,” she said.
The BRA is expected to put the parcel out to bid soon. Oliner may sue to challenge a new RFP, and to overturn the de-designation. That’s one of the reasons the BRA is acting now – to dispense with litigation while the market remains down.
Oliner spokesman Jack Brennan told Banker & Tradesman Oliner has “invested significant resources in planning and permitting” the site, adding that the New York developer still hopes to successfully develop the site.
