Downtown Crossing Business Improvement District Holdouts

Downtown Crossing Business Improvement District Holdouts  The Boston Globe has a front page article today about Boston’s Downtown Crossing revitalization efforts and some big companies that are not willing to pay their share of the bill.

It seems that in Massachusetts, unlike in other states, property owners within the district can opt out of paying the extra taxes targeted for revitalization efforts.  Several major property owners – including Equity Office Properties, Tishman Speyer, Steve Belkin, and the three McDonald’s restaurants in the area – are refusing to join the 80% of district business owners who have signed on according to the Globe.

What a shame!  My dad’s office was in the Financial District for many years and I remember when Downtown Crossing was a bustling and popular center in the city filled with shoppers and business people.  It looks rundown, dirty and depressing by comparison now. 

All property owners and employers in the area will benefit from an improved Downtown Crossing. It is sad that some property owners are sitting on their wallets while others foot the bill.

Here’s hoping the local property owners do the right thing and get on board with the improvement efforts for Downtown Crossing.  And let’s hope the business improvement district law in Massachusetts gets reworked so this problem doesn’t come up again. 

 

Read the Boston Globe article about Downtown Crossing Business Improvement District Holdouts here.

Categories: Everything Else

This entry was posted on Monday, November 8th, 2010 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Everything Else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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