Jeffrey Mullan, incoming secretary and CEO of the state’s new transportation super-agency, said this morning that the new MassDOT will take a businesslike approach to its own affairs, and look to use transportation projects and transportation-owned real estate to spark broader economic development.
"We’re investing in every corner of the commonwealth," Mullan said, speaking at a NAIOP Massachusetts breakfast. "We recognize that economic development and transportation are not just connected – they’re essentially the same thing."
Mullan acknowledged the track record of the agencies that will combine to form MassDOT next week – the Turnpike Authority, MBTA and MassHighway – have a scattershot history that "has left most observers frustrated, angry and, in some cases, hostile." He pledged to be "singularly committed to honesty" and to steer MassDOT with a "simple, businesslike approach."
As an independent authority, Mullan said, MassDOT’s real estate decision-making will more closely resemble the Turnpike real estate arm than MassHighway’s.
"We will have more flexibility to find creative solutions to using our real estate assets to support smart economic development projects," he said. Mullan said his agency would pursue smart growth and urban revitalization projects on par with Assembly Square in Somerville, the ongoing air rights development in the Fenway, the Quincy Center Concourse, and a new Route 24 off-ramp that will open up access to a new 300-acre biotech park in Fall River.
After the breakfast, Mullan told Banker & Tradesman the administration remains committed to Westwood Station, the giant mixed-use development project at the junction of I-95 and Route 128, even though Westwood’s substantial infrastructure needs remain unfunded.
Meanwhile, the Patrick administration released a list of 33 priority projects for the second round of federal stimulus funding yesterday. The list includes $165 million in investments connected to a number of high-profile mixed-use development projects – Patriot Place in Foxboro, Assembly Square and LNR’s SouthField project in Weymouth. The $1.5 billion Westwood Station is conspicuously absent from that list.
"There are some issues regarding readiness," Mullan said. "We continue to work with them on it. The fact that they weren’t on the list should not be any indication of a lack of support from the administration. We’re looking to create jobs [with stimulus funds]. We can’t say we’re looking to create jobs and then say Westwood isn’t a priority. It is."
