Future tax revenue will finance downtown improvements

Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, March 2011

Quincy is moving forward with a novel strategy for a $1.3 billion overhaul of its downtown. Rather than the city having to fund $227 million in infrastructure improvements up front, those costs initially will be assumed by the developer, then paid back using new tax revenue generated by the project.

The approach, known as a purchase model, greatly reduces the city’s burden for the infrastructure-related costs, which will include a new parking garage. The overall project, expected to generate 4,100 construction jobs and 5,700 permanent positions, is intended to make the city far more attractive to visitors, thanks to features such as a four-acre park adjacent to a new historic and cultural center.

An agreement between the city and the developer, Street-Works Development, was signed in January following almost three years of discussions and review, according to Chris Walker, policy director for Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch. The City Council spent roughly 40 hours over numerous sessions scrutinizing the legal, financial and environmental aspects of the arrangement before giving its approval.

“For most development deals, there is a template,” Walker said. “Even for the biggest deals that are cut, I’m sure, there’s a basic framework. This, for the most part, was done from scratch.”

An executive summary of the project covers more than a dozen pages. A three-inch-wide binder is needed for the complete documentation.

Ground-breaking is not expected until 2013, with construction expected to last through much of the decade. The city has filed a home-rule petition that would allow it some technical exemptions from Chapter 121A, the state’s urban redevelopment law, to fit the project’s needs.

In April 2008, Quincy designated Street-Works as “master developer” of what is formally known as the city’s Urban Revitalization Development Plan. The following year, Koch and other city officials met with their counterparts in West Hartford, Conn., where Street-Works had completed a similar but much smaller project the previous year. Walker said that West Hartford officials made it clear that Street-Works did everything it said it would do.

“That built a level of trust in the mayor’s mind that we’re going to be able to maintain this partnership,” Walker said.

But it wasn’t until January 2010, after Koch and other Quincy officials traveled to Street-Works’ headquarters in White Plains, N.Y., that Quincy officials became confident that the plan the developer had in mind was feasible, according to Walker.

Quincy will be seeking state and federal grants totaling about $50 million, but the overall ratio of private money to public money for the downtown redevelopment project will be about four to one, Walker said.

Had the city been unable to reach an agreement with the developer, many of the downtown infrastructure improvements, such as utilities and sidewalks, eventually would have needed to be done anyway.

“Could we do it all at once, in a mechanism that would end up as the redevelopment of the city the way we have it planned out now?” Walker asked. “Probably not.”

For more information, contact Chris Walker at (617) 376-1990.