Waiting for CitySquare
Worester Mayor Timothy Murray can’t wait until the Worcester Common Outlets mall is demolished to a pile of rubble. At that point, he says, they’ll be no going back on the move he spearheaded in 2004 to erase the white elephant from the city’s downtown and build a development that will be an economic asset.
But Murray and everyone else who is waiting for the $563-million City Square project slated to fill that role will have to face another spring with an empty downtown mall in tact. It now appears that the mall probably won’t fall until at least late summer, even if, as Worcester City Manager Michael O’Brien, Murray and At-Large Councilor Michael Perotto say, the months of negotiations with developer Berkeley Investments Inc. really are in the final stretch this time.CitySquare Project Manager and Berkeley Vice President Barbara Smith-Bacon, who had said in December that the site work would likely begin in the second quarter of 2006, now says demolition is unlikely to start until the second or third quarter "at the earliest." And, she says, the delay in hammering out a development agreement with the city hasn’t helped the project’s finances.
Smith-Bacon says, however, that her company is "absolutely not" having financial difficulties as some have speculated, despite its undertaking a major project to reconstruct 14 buildings in the Fort Point Channel section of Boston for mixed used. And, she says, despite reports that the negotiations between the city and her company were hung up over city demands regarding its use of union labor, that has not been an issue. "We have very good relations with the union and non-union representatives," she says.
Neither Smith-Bacon nor O’Brien is talking about what the sticking points in the development agreement are. Neither would give a specific date for the agreement finalization. But while Smith-Bacon had warned earlier in December that her company had "a number of options" as owners of the 20.2-acre mall site if a pact wasn’t reached with the city, she was more upbeat about the process. "We’re feeling positive about it," she said.
O’Brien is equally upbeat, as he has been throughout the process. But he’d rather use another d-word in talking about the past four months. "It’s not a delay; it’s just due diligence," he says. "We’re still moving at lightening speed, but certainly not to the expectations I set." The development agreement is the document that literally protects the taxpayers, whose recovery of the $92-million investment in the project depends on the performance of the developer, he points out. Since CitySquare is the largest project outside of Boston in the state’s history and the first use of District Improvement Financing funds, O’Brien adds, "In many ways, we’re pioneers."
When and if the development agreement is inked, state Sen. Edward Augustus Jr. (D-Worcester) says he still expects legislation authorizing the DIF, which allows the city to borrow $64 million for its share of the project, to be readily approved. Augustus held up the measure in November at the city’s request to provide it with leverage in negotiations. Legislative approval of an economic stimulus package, including the $25 million for the state’s share of the project, will take a bit longer. Lawmakers are so wrapped up in the health-care issue, Augustus says, they are unlikely to take that bill out of conference committee for some time.
Augustus says he’s "100 percent confident" that CitySquare will go forward. And while city negotiations have taken longer than anyone expected, he says, "nobody will ever remember this little delay."
Well, maybe not nobody. At-large Councilor Konstantina Lukes says,"The longer the delay, the higher the cost, the lower the expectations and the higher the anxiety." Negotiations have dragged on so long the public is starting to make jokes about Worcester’s "city on the move" slogan, she says. "I’m beginning to lose hope."
Micky Baca can be reached at mbaca@wbjournal.com
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