"New Approach to Development"

Menino says BRA will adopt new approach to development

Boston Business Journal - by Eric Convey Journal staff

The Boston Redevelopment Authority -- the agency that oversees city planning -- needs to be revamped so it can take a more proactive roll in guiding what's built and where with an eye toward stimulating key industries, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said Tuesday morning.
"Our new BRA director, John Palmieri...and I share the conviction that today's global competition demands that we reorient our planning and economic development," Menino told a breakfast hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel.

"Boston must become more proactive in envisioning and creating economic growth. City government must reach out to business and support you," he added.
The work needs to expand beyond the development to also include more assistance for existing companies, he said.

Specifically, he said, the city needs to do more to help the state's financial services industry, which he said employees 80,000 people, occupies 20 million square feet and generates half a billion dollars of annual state income tax.

"It's critical to our economy," he said.

In January, Menino said, he will convene business school deans and top executives to find ways "to provide added value for financial services firms and to solidy Boston as a global center for years to come." Part of that will include finding ways to better-train Bostonians for jobs in the industry, he said.

Menino also turned to a topic he first raised a year ago -- his controversial proposal to move City Hall from its current location at Government Center to a new site on the South Boston waterfront.

Noting that some critics had panned the proposal, he said Tuesday morning that some "facts" are beyond debate: "We have a costly, inefficient building that needs millions of dollars in maintenance, and we have a geographically small city with a large, underutilized site right in its center."

In an interview following the speech, Menino told the Boston Business Journal that he continues to pursue the possibility of splitting City Hall operations between a new waterfront location and a neighborhood-oriented facility in a building the city purchased in Dudley Square.

"We've got to move some of our operations there," said Menino. "We have to have a center in the city close to the public."

But with the Internet, he said, many City Hall operations would work fine from the Seaport District.

In a question-and-answer session -- the questions were filtered by the Chamber of Commerce -- Menino said the city will "address concerns" so the Boston University biolab can be built in the South End.