
Convention Center Expansion No Boon to Back Bay Hotels
The proposed $400 million expansion of the Boston’s gigantic Seaport convention hall could turn out to be one very sweet deal for a Texas tycoon and GOP mega-donor.
The proposed $400 million expansion of the Boston’s gigantic Seaport convention hall could turn out to be one very sweet deal for a Texas tycoon and GOP mega-donor.
As Gov. Charlie Baker revs up to make another attempt at selling the Hynes Convention Center more than two years after his first effort fell flat, legislative leaders said Monday they still do not know where they stand.
Convention business in Massachusetts is “starting to escalate quite dramatically,” a trend that could lift tourism and hospitality sectors ravaged during the pandemic, officials said Thursday.
Workers from several local construction unions and firms came together last week to help convert the cavernous Boston Convention & Exhibition Center into a 1,000-bed field hospital in just three days.
In addition to a planned $500 million expansion at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, officials are planning at least four other requests to find developers interested in putting hotels, parking or both on MCCA-owned land around the BCEC.
The Back Bay Association is raising the specter of a punishing blow to the Back Bay economy if efforts to redevelop the Hynes Convention Center falter due to economic timing, or the complications of rebuilding on a site partially located above the Massachusetts Turnpike.
While Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday his administration has noted “tremendous” interest from real estate developers in his proposal to sell off Back Bay’s Hynes Convention Center for redevelopment, legislative leaders appear reluctant to jump on board the bandwagon.
The MCCA’s board of directors on Thursday took a series of votes to authorize the sale of the Hynes Convention Center, pending legislative approval, to begin work towards a $500 million expansion of the BCEC and to return 12 acres of land in the seaport to the city of Boston.
The Baker administration is reviving the idea of expanding the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston’s Seaport and wants permission to sell the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay for redevelopment in order to fund it.
Hotel investors worldwide consider Boston to be a top destination for hotel investment in the United States. Anchored by world-famous institutions in both higher education and health care, Boston is a diverse and thriving economy that is only getting better.
A development pipeline that could add more than 2,000 hotel rooms to the Seaport District in the next few years is likely to add momentum to the debate over expansion of the 70-acre Boston Convention and Exhibition Center campus.
Plans for a greatly expanded Boston Convention and Exhibition Center are moving forward for the first time in more than two years.
Massport’s approach to development of prime real estate that it owns in Boston’s Seaport District could serve as a case study in lost opportunities.
After three years of fits and starts while development has covered vacant parcels in the surrounding neighborhood, Massport has selected a consortium of developers to build a 1,054-room hotel on Summer Street opposite the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.