Linking real estate development and employment : land use and labor market choices in the South Boston Seaport District

Abstract

Boston's waterfront has been called the most attractive development opportunity in the United States. The South Boston Seaport District, a 1,000-acre, largely industrial section adjacent to Boston's financial district, is slated for massive redevelopment over the next twenty years. An MIT study done this year for the Boston Harbor Conference estimated that the redevelopment of the district will bring the construction of five thousand new hotel rooms and fourteen million square feet of commercial and residential space. The study predicts that this development will create sixty thousand new jobs in the hotel, retail, office, and entertainment industries over the next twenty years. This development is coming to an area of Boston that has historically been a center of manufacturing and port industries. The employment impacts of this new real estate development will be dramatic and may well represent the final chapter in a story of deindustrialization and a shift to services. While the vast majority of the new jobs in the Seaport will be in offices, the hospitality industry is expected to experience the highest growth rate in the next twenty years. Many of the higher-paying jobs in both sectors may be beyond the education and training of many disadvantaged workers. At the same time, most of the jobs accessible to these workers will be low-paying, insecure service jobs. During the redevelopment, community groups and policy makers will make choices affecting the prospects of less-educated inner-city job seekers in the Seaport District. Linkage, the payment of an exaction or the provision of other community benefits in exchange for zoning approval, could be a powerful way to improve access, work conditions, wages, and career ladders in the District. To date, linkage implementation has been disorganized and without significant community input. This thesis seeks to answer the question of how linkage and other tools available during the real estate development process can be used to maximize the number of good living-wage jobs in the Seaport District. To answer this question, this thesis will consider the types of jobs to be created in the district, followed by a discussion of linkage programs in other cities, a presentation some technical and legal aspects of linkage in Boston, and an evaluation the application of linkage in Boston in the past. In this evaluation of linkage in Boston, the linkage agreement made in conjunction with the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center will be discussed, and the Seaport Hotel Community Outreach and Job Readiness Program, the first jobs program funded by linkage in the District, will be presented. The thesis will conclude with some recommendations for improving linkage.