No takers for choice property near South Station bad news for Quincy?

<![CDATA[

See red for unbid upon MassDOT property
Image care of the Boston Globe

– News about elsewhere with dire implications for Quincy covered by Quincy Quarry News.

 

No takers for choice state-owned property near South Station bad news for Quincy?

 

In breaking badly news bad news for the Commonwealth that also poses implications for Quincy, state land in Downtown Boston that is conveniently located adjacent to major highways, two subway lines,  and a combined Amtrak and commuter rail station that had been put out for bids from developers to redevelop this site apparently has too many issues to justify the price sought by the state as no bids were submitted.

 

Underground Big Dig work done at bid site
A BDS Structural image

Key reasons for no bids submitted surely include the considerable challenges and thus expense of building above a complex network of mostly underground transit ways.

 

These same problems have stymied the development of state-owned air rights elsewhere in Boston. 

 

For but a few examples of other proposed air rights projects that have gone nowhere include various proposals to build over the Massachusetts Turnpike in both the Back Bay and the Fenway.

 

In fact, so protracted have been the delays that some of these projects have achieved a near-mythical status in Boston’s development world for their delays.

 

Decaying Quincy Center MBTA garage
A Quincy Quarry News file photo

In turn, with the MBTA planning to put out a Request for Proposals from prospective bidders to develop building space in the City of Quincy’s air rights over the Quincy Center MBTA station sometime this year, will a no bids submitted history repeat itself in the Q?

 

After all, this Quincy site faces many of the same problems that have stymied the state’s attempts to see development over its air rights in Boston, along with the added problem of facing similar construction costs in what is the far more modestly-priced real estate market that is Quincy.

 

Unhappy mayor
an old Facebook photo

That and how the site has already been arguably cursed after the state court system surely rejected for both cost and impractical site concerns Mayor Koch’s long-touted proposal to build a new and greatly expended Quincy District Courthouse over the Quincy Center MBTA station.

 

Further problematic is the fact that the MBTA currently does not have funding in place to rebuild the Quincy Center station as well as so also prepare the site for air rights construction over the station.

 

As such, both the MBTA and Mayor Koch are expecting a considerable bid for these air rights such that the revenue from it will greatly assist in the funding of the requisite reconstruction of the Quincy Center MBTA station. 

 

A City on the Move to soon hit the wall?
An Iconic Quincy Quarry file photo

Needless to say, with no bids submitted on prime location in Boston MassDOT property, things thus do not bode well for the future of a (public, ed.) Transit Oriented (Red)evelopment of a long promised New Quincy Center anytime relatively soon.

 

Accordingly, Quincy Quarry’s ever-growing legions of loyal readers can count on the Quarry to continue to report on this still evolving story in the hard-hitting fashion only it has the stones to do.

Read Full Story: No takers for choice property near South Station – The Boston Globe

QQ disclaimer

]]>