Good Luck To The Turnpike’s New Real Estate Guy – He’ll Need It
It looks like the Turnpike has a new real estate chief.
Peter O’Connor, deputy secretary for real estate and economic development at the Executive Office of Transportation, will now be overseeing the Turnpike’s many development endeavors.
This will be welcome news for local developers, some of whom are competing for the right to build on various, Turnpike controlled air-rights parcels over the highway’s Boston span.
The Turnpike’s real estate operations have been in flux since the cash-strapped state highway authority laid off its real estate chief and his assistant, leaving just two staffers in its devastated real estate department.
In an interview earlier today, O’Connor, who has a long background in state and city economic development, said he plans to take a fresh look at the myriad of development plans the Turnpike is overseeing.
In particular, the Turnpike is juggling several different proposals by developers to build over various sections of the highway’s Boston span. However, while there is no shortage of plans, after more than a decade, the Turnpike’s air-rights endeavors have resulted in no major projects getting built.
It’s a track record that O’Connor says he is acutely aware of. In fact, it’s an assessment he has also made clear to the Turnpike itself.
“The way I put it, you guys have deals papered from the Zakim Bridge to Brighton, but no one has built anything,’’ O’Connor said of his blunt assessment. “Clearly whatever construct you were using didn’t work.’’
I say keep it coming.