The waterfront around Fan Pier has long been the Hub’s development frontier, albeit a gilded one, with acres upon acres of buildable piers and parking lots, and visions of glittering, upscale high-rises catering to the affluent.
But the South Boston Seaport/Innovation District’s pioneering days are finally coming to a close, with almost all available development sites either being built on or spoken for after two decades of intense planning and construction. Like the federal government’s historic declaration in 1890 that the western frontier was no more, the closing of Boston’s long-time development frontier is likely to have reverberations for years to come.
Still, while the end of an era is always hard, it may not be such a bad thing for Boston in the long run. The waterfront boom has been all about luxury hotels and deluxe office suites, apartments and condos, not to mention a gigantic convention center devoted to luring free-spending executives to town. The decades-long effort has yielded precious little, if any, housing for the Hub’s middle class, unless you count $1,700 micro apartments pitched to young tech entrepreneurs as affordable housing.
Huge Tracts Of Land
The Seaport “was the last great frontier,” said Brian Golden, acting director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “While you don’t have vast tracts of land available like that in the downtown area, we will look at nodes around the city that might lend themselves to more modest, innovative development.”
Sure, it may seem hard to believe the Seaport is finally settled, its character and future clear now for all to see in the girders of new high-rises or in gleaming renderings put out by eager beaver developers. But most of multibillion-dollar Fan Pier project is either built out, in construction, or on its way. Across the street, veteran tower developer John Hynes is slowly but surely rolling out his vision for Frank McCourt’s vast expanse of parking lots, while John Drew’s long-planned apartment tower across from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center is up and leasing.
A bevy of big corporate players have put up towers in the Seaport, including State Street, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Manulife. In fact, some of the big players on the waterfront are now struggling to find sites left over to build on.
One of the biggest landowners in the South Boston Seaport, the Massachusetts Port Authority, has helped spark billions of dollars in new development. Now Massport wants to expand the Black Falcon cruise terminal, but is having to look at sites beyond its rapidly dwindling portfolio of developable land.
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority is scrambling to put together dozens of acres needed for a 60 percent expansion of its giant South Boston meeting hall and a planned, new headquarters hotel.
“Everyone is running out of land,” said Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association. “It is getting tight down here.”
The one exception may be the Marine Industrial Park, with the Boston Redevelopment Authority now looking for a consultant to help it explore development opportunities there. There are still lots of vacant lots and buildings that can be built upon and interest on part of developers in building retail, office and commercial projects.
But this is no slam dunk. State law stipulates that 95 percent of the park be reserved for maritime and industrial uses, which are not necessarily a perfect mix with shops and legal offices, Golden said.
But as they say, as one door closes, another opens.
Boston’s Rapid Gentrification
The build-out of the thousand-acre Seaport has been an obsession for decades now at City Hall, and arguably an increasingly unhealthy one at that. Amid all the hoopla over new waterfront towers and parks, Boston has become increasingly unaffordable for middle and working class residents, with the most rapid gentrification of any city in the country over the past few years, a recent Cleveland Fed report found.
Certainly Marty Walsh, Boston’s new mayor, gets it.
Walsh has made it clear he wants to seek out new development frontiers – and more opportunities to build middle-class housing – from East Boston to Roxbury to the soon to be free land around the Allston-Brighton tolls.
“With this mayor, I think there is going to be a real push for apartment development in the neighborhoods,” said David Begelfer, chief executive of NAIOP Massachusetts, which represents developers from across the state.
In fact, there are a dozen different “nodes” beyond the Seaport that city officials are focusing on as the next frontier for Boston’s future growth, noted Golden, the BRA’s acting director. The aim is to spur construction not just of new offices and shops, but also housing affordable to middle class buyers.
Andrew Square, the New Balance project that looms over the Pike at Brighton, as well as the East Boston waterfront, where four major apartment projects are all permitted and ready to go.
“We are really trying to focus out in the neighborhoods on transit orientated developments, where it’s residential or commercial or retail, to see if we can unlock opportunities,” Golden said.
Still, there remain a few scattered opportunities in the Seaport beyond the Marine Industrial Park, including some sites such as 100 acres near the big Gillette plant and a couple wedged in near the convention center, though they are going fast.
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