Outgoing Boston Redevelopment Authority Director John Palmieri leaves a mixed legacy: One of the most well-respected directors in recent memory, Palmieri steered a course through the worst recession in generations and laid the groundwork for grand developments that could shape Boston’s downtown for decades to come. He also presided over a handful of historic Boston development disasters.

Under Palmieri’s watch, planning and permitting was started on a number of important initiatives. A pair of modest successes in One Marina Park Drive and Atlantic Wharf proved the promise of the Seaport, and discussions were begun on future policy of development along the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

But his tenure may forever be marked by a cold pit in the heart of the city’s main shopping district where Filene’s used to be; and a costly, years-long battle to build Columbus Center over the Massachusetts Turnpike that ultimately resulted in nothing.

The challenge for his eventual successor, then, lies both in continuing the good work begun by Palmieri on massive redevelopment efforts like the Seaport and Greenway; while simultaneously finding a way to pick up the pieces left in the wake of the great recession and succeed at jumpstarting development in the downtown where Palmieri could not.

“Palmieri did a great job of getting Boston through a tough time,” said Benjamin Heller, senior vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle. “[In a successor,] you have to have someone who can weigh what’s best for the city in the long-term. There are projects on the horizon that people would like to see move along, and [the new director] will need to weigh which projects can take the city to the next level, whether it’s One Franklin, the Harbor Garage, or Columbus Center. They all have merits and issues, but getting the economy to support what someone wants to do in a timely manner is a difficult task. And compressing that process means losing the due process the public wants to vet projects out equally.”

A Kinder Legacy

Palmieri steered the BRA during a very challenging time for the city, commonwealth and country. Construction was largely stagnant compared to prior years, and there were not many of the eminent domain battles and other issues community activists like to latch onto. Real estate professionals said Palmieri often had a way of accommodating all parties to some degree, leaving all at the end of negotiations feeling they had gained ground.

“No one burned him in effigy,” said Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association, a waterfront development advocacy group.

Li, who worked with Palmieri on development topics, said Palmieri was a true administration man who toed the party line for whatever initiatives Boston Mayor Thomas Menino would push. She said he was the least egotistical and most easygoing of recent BRA directors.

“John welcomed the fact that the mayor was always the center of activities, and he was sort of on the sidelines,” Li told Banker & Tradesman.

Li also said Palmieri’s easy collaboration with colleagues helped foster a sense of cooperation within the BRA, not competition.

“When you think about his relationship with [BRA Chief Planner Kairos Shen], no other BRA director has ever had a chief planner to work with,” Li said. “A different personality might have found a third party almost threatening, but not John. You never had a sense of him going around people or not being supportive. He was more confident in that way, so he didn’t have to be front and center. And with staff he was generally kinder. Whoever follows him will hopefully follow with that kind of personality.”

Coming Challenges

Li echoed Heller’s hopes that the next director will help spur action at the Filene’s site and continued development in the Seaport, as well as further developing planning and policy initiatives along the Greenway and waterfront. And given the way the city has pushed developer John Hynes to help create the Seaport’s much-discussed innovation district, she opined, it is obvious how much clout the BRA can wield with the right man at the helm.

“You want a BRA director who can work with the development community, and the community at large, to ensure plans are implemented the right way,” Li said.

Undoubtedly, the greatest challenge the new director will face – and the one over which he has the smallest degree of control – is the state of the overall economy. If the health of the state and the nation does not improve, the next development chief might find him- or herself merely continuing the preliminary planning processes that Palmieri worked within, creating grand visions only to see them stall and whither on the drawing board.

“The economy and financial markets are largely outside of any director’s control,” said Meredith Management President John Rosenthal, who is currently exploring financing options for his $450 million, mixed-use Fenway Center redevelopment project in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood.

“The capital markets are the biggest challenge right now to major development efforts. But once a project is financially feasible, the challenge of the director is to manage all of the stakeholders’ expectations, and make sure they dovetail with the city’s planning vision. John Palmieri embodied, I think, the perfect combination [of traits] – long-time public servant, planner and a great staff director.”

Regarding a replacement, Rosenthal said there are very qualified people already at the BRA, including Shen and BRA Chief of Staff James Tierney.

Palmieri’s replacement will ultimately be recommended to the BRA board by Menino, who has given little indication of his intentions. Calls to the mayor’s office and the BRA went unreturned.