Many Great Comments

 A thought just occurred to me after I posted my comment, our expectations. I expect good public safety, good public works (streets,trash and water&sewer) and good schools being paid with my taxes. 

The City went beyond what are our are normal expectations and "invested" in the construction the ball park and set a new expectation that the project would not cost us taxpayers. Then the cost overruns,75% of the original budget, occurred and the development which was expected to pay for the ball park has been delayed. 

It is logical to ask questions to see if the expectations which were set by the City are still valid. On a side note I will say the states reconstruction of the peanut exceeded expectations. This leads me to my final comment. 

Government's involvement in development should be limited to infrastructure and let the private sector develop non governmental buildings because an "investment" of public funds could become a gamble of public funds.

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Bob Kraft asked the state for money when he wanted to build the new Gillette Stadium. The state turned it down so he ended up having to finance the whole thing himself. The state did pay to update the road network to and from the stadium, but the politicians in Boston made it clear that he wasn't getting any money for the stadium. 

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 There is an article in the T&G about the majority of the ownership not selling their interest in the WooSox. One of the reasons for not selling is they want to see their real estate plans come to fruition. The article did not report on their real estate plans. 

A previous comment spoke about a gas station on Quinsig Ave. I don’t see these owners not selling because of a gas station. This leads me to these questions which I assume the reporter did not ask or did not report, do they have plans to buy additional properties and redevelop them or are they involved somehow with Madison. If this is the case they may have really out bargained the City because they have the best of both worlds.

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The ballpark most likely was constructed so fast because the City had to have it open for the start of last season which is probably one of the reasons for the cost overruns, overtime and second shifts. I thought read that the PawSox lease had expired and they had no where to play. 

This is unlike the developers time frame which is driven by the market. You would of thought that with the state of the residential market they would be in overdrive to get the housing completed but that does not appear to be the case which makes no sense to me. The office building, hotel an lab buildings are probably years away or might be substituted with something else because of the market conditions. 

What I have learned from reading about the airport is how much the airlines rely on business travel which is down. I assume that extends to hotels. Another commenter made reference to the 2nd hotel at Washington Sq which has been waiting for 5-6 years now.This must be because the market may not support this many hotels.

The office building has similar issues. The City has a glut of class a office space between the glass tower and the UNUM building. Couple that with the fact that a lot of places have transitioned to employees working from home. Who would build a new office building in this environment. 

This is one persons observation and from this I am questioning if the project will pay for itself, even with the addition of the Cove and Table Talk developments.

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