Scott Van Voorhis
Who says there is no silver lining to hard times?
When the economy starts to falter, it knocks the legs out from under daring projects. But it also puts the kibosh on some dubious ones as well.
Take the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority’s controversial move to begin exploring whether to burrow under Boston Common, one of the nation’s historic jewels, to roughly double the size of the parking garage underneath.
The convention authority not long ago was steadily pushing this idea amid rising demand for downtown parking. Now it’s quietly consigning the concept to what could be a very long review.
James Rooney, the veteran public sector manager who oversees the authority and its flagship new convention center on the city’s waterfront, told me you can add downtown parking to the list of things that have changed dramatically over the past few months.
Demand at the 1,350-space garage, by some key measurements, has fallen off by 10 to 20 percent, Rooney said. Nor is one of downtown Boston’s best parking bargains — $11 a day – simply mired in a temporary slump.
The notoriously competitive surface parking lots on the South Boston waterfront are lowering their rates. Across town, garages are offering “early bird” specials in a bid to fill a sudden supply of empty spaces. You can actually find a space, if still not a stunning bargain, when you drive downtown.
‘Cubicle Parking’
At work here, of course, is the economic downturn, which is fast shifting from Wall Street to the business and street near you. Office vacancy rates are edging up as companies quietly cut jobs, leaving empty cubicles and unclaimed parking spots.
Along with the impact of bad times, the commuters that still have jobs are changing their habits. Relatively high gas prices, and painful memories of record prices at the pump earlier this year, are prompting a surge in ridership on the commuter rails and subways. That’s another piece of bad news for local garage owners, one that may outlast the current recession.
These are the signs that Rooney, who held key posts in state and city government before he helped turn a potential white elephant into one of the nation’s most successful meeting venues, is reading as he orders a lengthy review of the garage plan. An initial study to see if the idea is even workable, which the authority had hoped to move briskly through, now won’t be complete for at least another year.
And if the nation and the Boston area are still mired in an ugly recession, look for that decision to be postponed again and again.
“On the garage, we have slowed down a bit,” Rooney said. “We, like most garages downtown, are seeing the effects of the economic downturn.”
All of which is a dramatic turnaround from just this May, when Rooney and the authority picked a local engineering firm to do a feasibility study on the project. At that point, despite the protests of influential activists such as the Friends of the Boston Public Garden, the convention authority appeared to hold all the cards.
Power Shift
While vowing to study the idea before pushing forward, the state authority had only to worry about the court of public opinion. For the key approval was already in place, a decades-old legislative approval to expand the underground garage. Commuters still battled for garage spaces, the number of which appeared poised to take a major dip amid series of development proposals that would build over existing lots and garages.
But implosion on Wall Street and the downturn that seems to be getting deeper by the day has turned a strong hand into a weak one. And the convention authority appears ready to cut its losses and focus on what should be a much more central priority – undertaking a major expansion of the $800 million-plus Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
The new hall, booked through 2012, needs to seriously explore an expansion if it wants to keep its hard-won place as one of the nation’s elite meeting venues, according to Rooney.
Don’t look for the convention authority to punt on this project, with a study on a potential expansion due out early next year.
“That is one that, from an overall business strategy perspective, was not mission critical,” Rooney said of the garage expansion idea. “We are focusing naturally on the convention and meetings business.”
