Last week Mayor Walsh’s top-to-bottom audit of the Boston Redevelopment Authority revealed some troubling issues within the organization. Though a severe lack of leadership and solidarity is amongst the top priorities Mayor Walsh and his administration aim to remedy, it turns out that another eyebrow-raising folly is that the BRA owns multiple plots of prime property that stand to generate revenue, but fails to do so.
But the BRA isn’t the only organization failing to capitalize on its waterfront real estate. Massport owns and operates Fish Pier, a massive Seaport staple at the epicenter of Boston’s seafood industry, that, according to Massport, supports over 50,000 maritime jobs.
Fish Pier is really two elongated buildings parallel to each other that jut out from the Innovation District into Boston Harbor. The area is currently home to 11 seafood processing businesses, 22 fishing vessels, several maritime industrial office tenants, and food service establishments like No Name Restaurant, Trio Café, and the Exchange Conference Center.
Together, the east and west buildings of Fish Pier constitute 62,000-square-feet of office space on the third floors alone. Of that, 38,000-square-feet, or roughly 60 percent, is currently occupied.
That means 24,000-square-feet of Fish Pier’s outstanding office space is currently vacant, unused and failing to line the pockets of Massport.
But why?
BostInno recently spoke with a former Fish Pier-based employee who told us that the tenantless space has been as such since at least 2012. That’s almost two years in which Massport could’ve filled this lucrative expanse with innumerable, money-making businesses and organizations.
We then reached out to Massport to find out why they aren’t capitalizing on this cost-effective area and if they plan to relinquish sitting on a proverbial gold mine. We also asked for an assessed value of the unused space, but Massport did not provide that data.
“It’s important that we create and support well-paying, blue collar jobs in the City of Boston, and we are exploring ways to do that at the Boston Fish Pier,” a Massport spokesperson told BostInno in an email. “Massport is actively marketing space on the pier and plans to issue a Request for Proposals in the very near future for vacant seafood processing space.”
Massport went on to tell us that Fish Pier lies within the South Boston Designated Port Area, a region specified by the Massachusetts Legislature to “promote and protect water-dependent industrial uses” because of its “particular physical and operational features important for water-dependent industrial uses,” according to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Based on this, as well as unspecified regulations of Massachusetts General Law Chapter 91, Massport claims that it’s restricted in the types of leasing opportunities it can pursue, despite the fact that the EEA notes further that “water-dependent industrial uses vary in scale and intensity.”
Chapter 91 section 6 states that storage facilities, wharves, piers, bulkheads, docks, sheds, warehouses, foreshores and industrial locations along Boston Harbor can lease space to tenants for up to 20 years at a time.
Both of these legislations, Massport told us further, “limit the allowed uses on the pier and make it more difficult to identify qualifying maritime industrial tenants, particularly for the third floor office space.” (As we mentioned earlier, though, there are plenty of eateries and watering holes located within Fish Pier.)
That’s not to say Massport isn’t shopping the 24,000-square feet worth of property.
“Currently, Massport is exploring possible ways to expand our upper floor leasing opportunities, while still supporting the needs of the seafood industry,” Massport added. “Additional lease income would be of great benefit since the costs to operate, maintain, and possibly improve the 100-year-old property are considerable.”
Though marketing initiatives and promotions have been subtle (have you seen any?), Massport plans on putting the space on full display this weekend for the Boston Seafood Festival. The event brings together some of The Hub’s most luscious and palatable cuisine afforded by that treasure trove of delectable goodies: the ocean.
It’s also a fantastic opportunity for Massport to start peddling its vacancies so that money can be made, businesses can be supported and Bostonians can enjoy a new and revamped aspect of Fish Pier.
Massport failed to convey whether or not they have any interested parties in the space at this time, but we’ll be sure to check back in after the Boston Seafood Festival.
Screenshot via Google Maps
