News

Louis C. Miller, a Director in the Real Estate Department, was quoted in the Boston Business Journal article entitled “Parcel 9: A Slice of the Greenway in Limbo”, on January 22, 2010.  The article describes The Boston Museum’s potential development of a parcel along the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

From the article:

“Parcel 9, adjacent to the Blackstone Block and Faneuil Hall Marketplace — and comprising what is generally believed to be one of the best sites in downtown Boston — has become emblematic of slowed Greenway development. Four proposals for Parcel 9 continue to be under review by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the entity that replaced the old Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which had jurisdiction over all aspects of the Greenway and the Big Dig.

As reported in the Boston Business Journal last week, an officials at the DOT has expressed concern over the ability of the favored proposal — the Boston Museum — to raise the necessary money in a difficult economy. As a result, DOT Director of Real Estate Peter O’Connor was given the charge of studying the proposals more closely before a designation is made. But the agency has given itself no definite deadline. DOT spokesman Colin Durant said a decision could possibly come at the board’s February meeting.

But officials of the Boston Museum take issue with the assertion that they will not be able to raise the money for the $120 million museum, which is envisioned as covering both local and state history and, by virtue of its location, would not only be in a high-traffic tourist spot, but would also be at the crossroads of key historic pedestrian routes like the Freedom Trail and the Walk to the Sea.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg thing,” said Lou Miller, chairman of the Boston Museum’s board and a partner at the law firm Rackemann Sawyer & Brewster. “We’ve already raised $7 million. We’ve got major individual and foundation donors lined up. But they’re not going to give us money until we are designated as controlling the site. These are potentially seven- and eight-figure donors. They’re saying, ‘When you’ve got designation, come back to us.’ We’ve had museum consultants tell us this is the best site for a museum anywhere in the country.””

For the complete article, please see: http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2010/01/25/focus3.html