"We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin’s counsel to his fellow patriots seems to have become the mantra of Boston’s much-discussed Seaport District – collaboration, “horizontal” links and mutual dependency are the new watchwords of the area, currently occupied mostly by parking lots and potential.
“We can’t market office without retail, can’t do retail without parking, can’t do residential without retail,” John Hynes, designated developer of the 23-acre, 6.5 million-square-foot Seaport Square, told Banker & Tradesman. Hynes is expected to present his latest plans for Seaport Square to the Boston Redevelopment Authority Sept. 21, and a great deal of his presentation will be about other developers’ projects.
“We just can’t build vertically anymore,” Hynes said. “We need to relate to [Joe Fallon, developer of nearby Fan Pier], to people coming from downtown. It’s about sidewalks, trees, neighbors, entertainment [and] stores.”
Contrary to the typical “kill thy neighbor” approach to real estate investing in established office districts, and contrary to attitudes in the Seaport as recently as two years ago, today, developers are saying they all need each other to succeed. They realize they can build individually – vertically – but need to connect outside their property lines – horizontally – to survive.
‘Residential Is The Key’
On Aug. 17, the BRA approved the first phase of the Drew Co.’s Waterside Place, a 21-story, 235-unit “Innovation Apartment Tower” at the corner of Congress and D Streets.
“Our decision to phase the project and build apartments rather than condos was based on where we fit into the neighborhood,” said Susan Allen, executive vice president of the Drew Co., a move which reflects the area’s new “collaborate, don’t compete” attitude. “We responded to what the area wants – a full grocer, a pharmacy.”
Massport is the largest landowner in the Seaport. Drew and Boston investment giant Fidelity, through real estate arm Pembroke Real Estate, hold long-term ground leases from the authority, which also controls the Boston Marine Industrial Park (BMIP), Fish Pier and Cruiseport Boston’s Black Falcon Cruise Terminal.
Lowell Richards, director of development at Massport, said the authority’s success in the area would not be possible without help from its neighbors.
“We couldn’t survive at the end of the peninsula without the rest of the city filling in,” Richards said. “We absolutely believe in collaboration, and a large part of that for us is generating activity on the water that will generate activity on the land.”
And it is hoped that those land activities draw the one component critical to each respective development’s success in the area – people, in the form of residential tenants and homeowners.
Andrew Dankwerth, vice president of Pembroke, said the company has been committed to the area since the 1980s, when it leased and renovated Massport’s then-decrepit Commonwealth Pier.
“What’s been amazing is the infrastructure that followed us – the highways, the [MBTA’s] Silver Line, the new roads,” Dankwerth said. “We want to see high-quality, mixed-use development. And residential is the key to everything.”
Today, the company’s anticipated Seaport Place project is expected to be an integrated 3.5 million-square-foot office, hotel, retail and conference center. And Pembroke knows that other projects hold the residential key to its commercial lock.
Cresset Group is building its Liberty Place project to the east of Fidelity, taking the concept of an integrated waterfront project to a new level with a series of small, interconnected office and retail properties and a 500-slip marina on the site of the former Jimmy’s Harborside.
But, like Fidelity, Cresset knows its long term success hinges on still further residential developments, like the Park Lane Seaport Apartments adjacent to its site.
‘A Mutual Effort’
While this spirit of collaboration would probably never be called particularly “innovative,” promoting its growth is essential to realizing Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s vision of the area as a so-called “Innovation District.”
“We want cutting edge technology with great design,” BRA Director John Palmieri told Banker & Tradesman. “It’s not just technology (companies) as tenants. We want to make sure the buildings and the Seaport are fully equipped to accept innovative people.”
Historically, real estate developers do have a certain ego about them, which makes the apparent efforts to put egos aside, if only marginally, even more impressive, Palmieri said.
“We have the most sophisticated developers in the world building in a well-defined and unique urban waterfront location,” Palmieri asserted. “Joe Fallon (Fan Pier), John Drew (Waterside), John Hynes (Seaport), all know they need to reach a tipping point of residential, new hotels and conventioneers [to] create a bonafide neighborhood.”
“These guys all need each other and they know it,” Palmieri continued. “We want to make sure that innovation is part of every project. It’s a mutual effort.”
But its not just new businesses and developments that are embracing the area’s newfound brotherly love. Menino is highly protective of existing businesses, whether in manufacturing or fish processing at the BMIP, or in the existing small restaurants and shops catering to the area’s diverse artist community.
Scott Garvey, owner of the popular Barking Crab restaurant on Fort Point Channel, said he welcomes the new sentiment, and hopes it carries over once nascent development plans are translated into the gritty world of real construction.
Garvey said he and other small businesses in the area experienced a feeling of isolation during construction of the Big Dig, another ambitious effort that re-routed two highways directly through and underneath the neighborhood.
“We don’t want to be shut off again,” Garvey said.
