This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 3/24/2000.


City officials, rival dismiss McCourt plan

By Anthony Flint, Globe Staff, 3/29/2000

In a high-stakes showdown on the South Boston Waterfront, developer Frank McCourt yesterday unveiled a novel revenue-sharing plan for fewer buildings and more park space in the area, only to have it shot down by skeptical city officials and a distrustful neighboring landowner.

McCourt, in an unusual alliance with the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, released details of a new layout for the waterfront near the federal courthouse, including a grand walkway from a planned T station to the harbor, and ''signature'' civic buildings similar to the Sydney Opera House.

To offset financial losses from building fewer revenue-producing buildings on the Fan Pier property, the Chicago-based Pritzker family and McCourt would go into partnership, combining the Pritzker's 16-plus acres and McCourt's inland parcels along New Northern Avenue. Under the plan, the two developers would share all costs and future revenues from 5 million square feet of new development, all at the heart of the emerging district.

But late yesterday afternoon, a representative of the Pritzker family spurned the overture, saying the current plan for a nine-block, 3.2 million-square-foot development would proceed. And top city planners dismissed the McCourt-CLF proposal as a self-interested ploy to give McCourt's land better water views and more pedestrian circulation to retail areas.

''I don't think it's doable, first of all, and I don't think it's a good plan,'' said Boston Redevelopment Authority director Mark Maloney. He said McCourt and CLF hoped he would approach the Pritzkers to foster cooperation, but that he would not do so. ''Marriages brokered by the BRA don't work,'' he said. ''They should feel free to approach the Pritzkers.''

Daniel O'Connell, vice president at Spaulding & Slye Colliers, the Pritzkers' local partners in the $1.2 billion Fan Pier proposal, said he has not seen the McCourt-CLF plan but signaled it has little chance of working.

''As described to me, it seems to have no basis in economic reality,'' O'Connell said. ''The program we have proposed is a tight one, but it does make for an economic project. We've worked for two years on this plan, we're excited about it, we're well along in the approval process, and it is our intention to permit and build this plan.''

The battle broke out into the open yesterday after weeks of careful preparation by McCourt and the Conservation Law Foundation to propose a new approach to development on the South Boston Waterfront, a 1,000-acre district seen as Boston's most dazzling real estate frontier.

CLF president Douglas I. Foy said promises for extensive public access - as spelled out in the original Seaport master plan and in the follow-up planning document, the Municipal Harbor Plan - were not being kept. But Foy said he wanted to back a new vision for the area rather than criticizing city planning and projects and threatening lawsuits on environmental grounds.

McCourt said he was also dismayed by the Pritzker proposal and the city's planning efforts for the district, and believed the area should have the grand civic spaces and signature parks that, for example, make the Back Bay distinctive. He said there were two choices: build the Pritzker plan as is and he will build equally large buildings on his land, or try the cooperative approach.

''It's not complicated. It's either thumbs up or thumbs down,'' McCourt said. ''This was not driven by who owns what. Fifty years from now nobody is going to care who owned what in the year 2000.''

Under the McCourt plan, the Pritzkers would build two large hotels beside the new federal courthouse as currently planned, but only two additional large buildings at the base of the cove next to Anthony's Pier 4. The current Pritzker plan calls for two hotels, three office buildings, and three residential buildings, all with retail and restaurants on the ground floors.

In place of the Pritzkers' four eliminated buildings, McCourt and CLF have proposed more open space and two new civic buildings to complement the proposed new home of the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is near Anthony's Pier 4 in both the Pritzker and McCourt-CLF plans. McCourt-CLF proposes one major civic building with a distinctive design where the Pritzkers would build luxury condominiums. Another building geared for public exhibits or performances is suggested for the property near the existing Our Lady of Good Voyage Chapel on Old Northern Avenue.

Under the McCourt-CLF plan, people would emerge from a large Transitway station on New Northern Avenue and walk north to the water, following a series of long reflecting pools similar to the Christian Science church property. Parkland would fan out like a delta to the base of the cove, leading to a retail market, water transportation, and the ICA.

If pedestrians walked west, toward downtown, they would see the new signature civic building and 4 acres of open space extending from the existing courthouse park, at the water's edge. A new park would also go at the southeast corner of the federal courthouse. Overall, the McCourt-CLF proposal doubles the amount of park space in the Pritzker plan.

Current plans call for ''a private place that makes some accommodations for the public around the edges,'' said Stephanie Pollack, vice president of CLF. ''This is exactly the opposite, and in fact what state law requires [for waterfront areas]: a public place that accommodates private development.''

Density would be ''pulled back'' from the water's edge under the McCourt-CLF plan, with a row of five buildings, possibly 200 to 300 feet tall, on five parcels between New Northern Avenue and Old Northern Avenue. Approximately 2.1 million square feet of new development would go on the Pritzker's Fan Pier land, and 2.9 million square feet of new development would go on that section of McCourt's land.

McCourt said he would leave development of the rest of his land - an expanse now used as a parking lot between New Northern Avenue and Summer Street - for later. He has draft plans for a large hotel at the southern tip of the property, near the entrance to the planned $700 million convention center. But that section of McCourt's L-shaped parcel would not be in the revenue-sharing arrangement with the Pritzkers.

Foy said he anticipated a cool reception by the Pritzkers and city officials but suggested that ''the decision is not entirely in their hands.'' The city and the Pritzkers will plunge into a drawn-out legal battle if current plans are pursued, he said. And if state environmental secretary Robert Durand - who has jurisdiction over waterfront construction under state environmental laws - says the Pritzker plan is not workable, alternatives will be needed, Foy said.

Significantly, Durand said through a spokesman that the McCourt-CLF plan should be taken seriously.

''We'd be supportive of any dialogue among any and all of the developers in the region, to maximize public access to the waterfront,'' said the spokesman, Doug Pizzi. ''One of our goals has always been to look at the waterfront as a whole, not piece by piece.''

The McCourt-CLF plan has the support of an array of waterfront activists, including Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association, who described it as ''intriguing, to get several landowners working together.''

''We're all aware there is posturing going on. It's an arranged marriage where there might be some reluctance, but there are prospects for a better vision.

''The worst outcome is if all this gets bogged down in disagreements and legal battles,'' she added. ''Here the community will get benefits, and over 2 million square feet for each developer is not insignificant. Everyone will come out ahead.''

McCourt faces steep challenges in the realm of politics, however. Council President James M. Kelly said he wants to see more detailed plans for the McCourt property, not just how the Pritzker property would be reduced. Kelly is active in the South Boston Design Advisory Committee, a neighborhood group, and generally favors office development for the linkage payments that are made for affordable housing in the area.

McCourt has also angered Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who is reportedly fuming that he was not shown the McCourt-CLF plan earlier. It is widely known that Menino and McCourt have had rocky relations; Menino also supports the Pritzker plan as the best chance for something to be built on the waterfront during his tenure as mayor. The McCourt-CLF group was said to be showing Menino the plan late last night, however.

Maloney, the BRA director, said he told the mayor he did not think the McCourt-CLF plan was feasible, and that he questioned how McCourt could propose new parkland and building configurations on someone else's property.

''It appears to be an attempt to create waterfront property where there is none,'' said BRA chief planner Linda Haar. ''How do you do that? By eliminating what's between you and the water.''

Both Maloney and Haar said that beyond practical considerations of the radical co-development rights proposal, the McCourt-CLF plan is at odds with the city's plans for the waterfront - which is to create enough buildings so the district is active seven days a week.

The McCourt-CLF plan ''looks great'' because of the additional parkland, but open space near the water can end up being ''cavernous and unused,'' Maloney said. ''Their plan is designed for visitors, with huge events, and then lots of quiet downtime,'' he said. ''We want a real urban neighborhood.''

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 3/29/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.


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