Large-scale development projects in the Bay State queuing up for federal stimulus funds won’t get Gov. Deval Patrick’s attention unless they can demonstrate financing first, according to Gregory Bialecki, the state’s secretary of housing and economic development.
"A developer is either ready to build, or he’s not," Bialecki told a group of reporters yesterday, after addressing a NAIOP forum in Boston’s Back Bay. "There’s a lot of talk about, ‘I’m ready to go, except for financing.’ That’s not ready to go."
"If a developer is telling us they have a tenant and financing, I assure you, they’ll be at the very top of our priority list" for stimulus funding, Bialecki added. "If you’re really ready, if you have tenants and financing, it makes all sense in the world to make those projects a priority."
Bailecki held up Assembly Square in Somerville and Trinity Financial’s Hamilton Canal project in Lowell as two projects that currently fit his definition of "ready to go."
"If a public infrastructure commitment is made" in Somerville, he said, "steel will go up on the IKEA site within the year."
The $1.5-billion Westwood Station development, whose developers have indicated they may seek federal funding for some or all of the project’s $120 million in infrastructure commitments, was one project Bialecki singled out as not demonstrating an appropriate level of readiness.
"(Westwood’s developers) have not indicated to us that they’re ready to go with tenants and financing," Bialecki said.
Bialecki and his colleagues in the state’s transportation bureaucracy are racing to meet 120-day "use it or lose it" cutoff dates, he said. As a result, the governor’s office hasn’t been able to program funds for public-private development partnerships – the type of projects that carry significant jobs multipliers.
Earlier in the day, Congressman Michael Capuano had faulted the deadlines as encouraging superficial or cosmetic projects with quick turnarounds, saying, "They’re all resurfacing projects so far. There’s no deep construction projects going on."
