This time, they say, it’s different.
The fall of 2014 is hailed as a long-overdue fresh start for the 1,400-acre SouthField project on the South Shore: A new public overseer, partnering with a new developer trying to reactivate a largely-deserted former air base by building thousands of homes and big blocks of commercial space.
For master developer Starwood Land Ventures and the SouthField Redevelopment Authority, many of the unmet goals are the same ones that stymied their predecessors, LNR Property and South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. Build out roads and utilities through public partnerships. Find major office and industrial users willing to relocate and pay taxes, enabling the project to pay back debt on up-front costs.
“I’m very optimistic we can get some of the burgeoning businesses in the Boston area to come down to this virgin land to put up some R&D and light manufacturing,” said Ralph Rivkind, a Boston real estate attorney and member of the Southfield Redevelopment Authority.
Despite perennial promises of economic growth and thousands of new jobs, two apartment complexes, 100 single-family homes and a senior living complex are the only new development since the air base closed in 1997. A Starwood executive said residential construction could begin next spring, if a drinking water connection to the MWRA is confirmed.
“Come next spring, we will be fully moving forward with sales of all sorts of residential products, and hope to never slow down again,” said Matthew Barry, a Starwood vice president.
For multifamily developers, the early returns have been encouraging. Braintree-based Corcoran Management’s 72-unit Commons on the Green luxury apartment complex opened in July and is 80 percent leased, with average rents of $2,100 a month or $215 a square foot, Corcoran Senior Project Manager Peter Mahoney said. That rivals closer-in submarkets such as Cambridge’s Alewife, which is experiencing a multifamily surge of its own.
But questions linger about SouthField’s ability to attract large-scale commercial development, given its lack of direct highway access and stiff competition from other Boston suburban markets.
On the South Shore, Southfield has existing competition for office users from submarkets like North Quincy. Big blocks of space near the MBTA’s Red Line have remained vacant for years at the 60-acre former State Street South office complex. As of Sept. 30, the vacancy rate in the 14.3-million-square-foot Route 128 south office market was 17 percent, according to commercial real estate brokerage Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s third-quarter report.
Lack of direct highway access is one obvious drawback of the SouthField property, with a main entrance on Route 18 in South Weymouth nearly three miles from Route 3. But planners point to the South Weymouth MBTA commuter rail station on the western edge of the base as a key asset, connecting to Boston’s South Station in 28 minutes.
“The whole goal, going back years, is you can walk to work, or bike to work, or take a shuttle bus to work,” said Rivkind, the South Shore Chamber of Commerce’s appointee to the redevelopment authority.
Long History Of Stagnation
The South Weymouth Naval Air Station spanned portions of Abington, Rockland and Weymouth, starting out in World War II as a base for anti-submarine blimp patrols. Following the base’s closure in 1997, the state created the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. to take charge of the redevelopment. Run by a five-member board of directors appointed by the three towns, Tri-Town was in charge of a wide variety of tasks, including negotiations with the Navy on land transfers, infrastructure planning and land-use permitting.
Tri-Town originally backed a plan for a 1.5-million-square-foot outlet mall, but dropped it in 2000 amid growing local opposition. Tri-Town brought aboard LNR Property Corp. as master developer in 2002. The three communities approved LNR’s new plan for 2,855 housing units and 2 million square feet of commercial development.
Lakewood Ranch, Fla.-based Starwood Land Ventures acquired LNR’s assets in 2013, and wasted little time demanding a change in SouthField’s public overseers. Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation in August abolishing Tri-Town Corp. and creating a new Southfield Redevelopment Authority run by a new nine-member board of directors.
Multi-Year Buildout
A financial analysis presented by Starwood to Weymouth officials this spring laid out a timeline of how much housing and office space will be built and when. Residential construction would begin in fiscal 2017 with 40 townhouses and 14 single-family homes, and ramp up in the ensuing years until 2,563 housing units are completed by fiscal 2025.
Commercial construction would be slower to take root, with the first 50,000-square-foot building breaking ground in fiscal 2018 and a buildout of 100,000 to 125,000 square feet in each year through fiscal 2025.
Those timetables could be accelerated, a Starwood’s Barry said, depending upon how quickly the Bill Delahunt Parkway project is completed. Starwood is negotiating with state officials on who will pay for completion of the 2.7-mile parkway, which will run across the base from Route 18 in Weymouth to Reservoir Park Drive in Rockland near Route 3.
The fate of those negotiations in coming months is key, with Starwood hoping to avoid having to pick up the pieces with a new administration after Patrick leaves office in January.
Commercial development would be likely to take off as soon as the road is completed, creating a critical new east-west route on the South Shore, Barry said. Starwood has received inquiries from all sectors of commercial real estate users, and interest has intensified since the new management structure took effect in September, he said.
“The commercial development begins in earnest when the parkway is completed. As a commercial developer, that is when I would think to invest,” Barry said.
Starwood also needs to confirm a drinking water source for the property, either through a pipeline to MWRA mains in Quincy or an MWRA connection – requiring upgrades – to existing mains in Weymouth or Braintree.
Email: sadams@thewarrengroup.com
