Massachusetts will not, in fact, sell as much as 300 square feet of the State House lawn to private developers to build window wells for au pair suites.
Recall that the folks behind the conversion of 25 Beacon Street into six floor-through condos asking from $9,000,000 to $11,000,000 wanted to purchase part of John Hancock’s former pasture for just such a purpose. The Baker administration was fine with that, citing an earlier sign-off from the Massachusetts Historical Commission.
Secretary of State William Galvin, who also heads the commission, was most definitely not O.K. with Gov. Charlie Baker selling "historic public land just to make more money for a developer." Galvin said the commission never gave the sign-off. Baker’s people say that it did.
Rather than fight the matter, Baker’s spokeswoman released a deliciously passive-aggressive statement rescinding the possibility of a sale (which would have been part of budgetary legislation): "If the Massachusetts Historical Commission no longer supports the approval it granted in its May 27, 2016, letter to the developers, then the administration would respectively ask the House and Senate to no longer include it as part of the legislation."
Galvin, for his part, accused the administration of essentially lying. "At some point, a misstatement becomes becomes a misrepresentation," Galvin told the Globe’s Frank Phillips. "The governor should be capable of understanding the difference."
Never a dull moment when politics meets real estate.
- Governor Drops Condo Easement at State House [Globe]
- Developers of 25 Beacon Could Get Part of the State House Lawn For Au Pair Suites [Curbed Boston]
- The Six Floor-Through Units of 25 Beacon Are Starting to Arrive [Curbed Boston]