Sworn in barely four months ago, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is already sending shock waves through the city’s development scene, though maybe not quite in the way many expected. 

Contrary to expectations, the new mayor didn’t immediately nuke the Boston Planning & Development Agency, instead opting for a go-slow approach to dismantling an agency she spent years railing against as a city councilor. 

But Wu hasn’t been sitting on her hands, either, pushing ahead in a search for a first-ever planning czar for Boston, while also moving to clip the BPDA’s powers in other ways. 

Meanwhile, she is refocusing city planning efforts away from downtown, with efforts to steer development toward often-neglected neighborhoods.  

Mayor Michelle Wu delivers the keynote speech at the Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Pinnacle Awards on March 4, 2022. She is said to be close to naming a top official to oversee planning city-wide. Photo by Isabel Leon | Boston Mayor’s Office

Key First Step Soon 

“The long game.” That might be the best way to describe Wu approach so far to reshaping the city’s development bureaucracy. 

Wu clearly feels passionately about dismantling a BPDA she sees as a vestige of an earlier, heavy handed, top-down approach to city development, having issued a detailed report on the issue as a city councilor. 

But maybe less known is the fact that Wu, during her successful campaign for mayor last fall, pledged to sunset the agency in a way that wouldn’t leave projects in the lurch or send developers running for cover. 

Speaking to B&T’s editorial board last fall, Wu likened replacing the BPDA to installing a new bridge over a highway. First you build the new span, and, then when its ready, you slide out the old one and seamlessly replace it with the new bridge. 

We’ll see whether replacing an entrenched city bureaucracy that has been around for 60 years can be done that smoothly. 

However, in a key first step, Wu is said to be only a matter of weeks away from hiring the city’s first-ever chief planner. The new cabinet-level position will play a key role overseeing planning and possibly how projects are vetted as well. 

Wu has also filed a proposal with the City Council that would begin to strip the BPDA of one of its key powers, calling for the “sunsetting” of five of the city’s 14 urban renewal areas. 

The agency has long enjoyed broad powers to take land by eminent domain in these districts, while also having the ability to push through projects that would ordinarily run afoul of various height and density restrictions. 

A Shift from Downtown 

Wu also recently made another momentous decision, signaling which areas of the Boston will get priority now when it comes to planning efforts. 

The Wu administration announced in February it would be relaunching a long-standing waterfront planning process with a focus on East Boston’s waterfront 

That, in turn, has effectively put on the back burner planning efforts related to the waterfront in downtown Boston – where, not coincidentally, Don Chiofaro is still seeking city approval for a 600-foot-tall tower. 

East Boston, though, is not the only neighborhood that appears to be getting more attention under Wu. 

City Hall is also ramping up efforts to finally develop the long-neglected P3 site in Lower Roxbury’s Nubian Square, vacant since it was cleared six decades ago to make way for an urban renewal-era high school complex and highway interchange that never got built. 

HYM Investment Group, a major downtown developer, and New York property giant Tishman Speyer submitted rival bids last week for the 7.7-acre lot across from Boston Police Department headquarters. 

HYM and its neighborhood partner have big plans for the site – 273 “truly affordable” condominiums and apartments, along with 700,000 square feet of life sciences space. 

Meanwhile, the BPDA is preparing to put to bid again a key site in Dorchester’s Uphams Corner, this time without the Strand Theater in the package. 

Scott Van Voorhis

An earlier call for bids for the Columbia Road site wound up with zero offers, with a requirement that developers’ team up with a new operator for the Strand a significant turnoff. 

Part of a larger effort to create an “Uphams Corner Arts & Innovation District,” city officials are looking for a developer to build affordable housing, commercial space and a new library branch next door to the theater. 

While certainly important on their own, the Uphams Corner and Nubian Square projects, and the attention they are getting from the Wu administration, are also clearly harbingers of things to come. 

Sure, the new moves, projects and policies Wu has embarked on don’t yet amount to a revolution in the world of Boston development. 

But stayed tuned, for here’s betting the city’s new mayor is just getting started. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.