Some concerned about financial risk

By George P. Hassett

With federal and state funds lagging, aldermen last week approved a city-funded plan to continue development at Assembly Square.

Under the plan, passed unanimously, the city would take out a $25 million bond against future property tax increases in three blocks of Assembly Square.

The move was a reaction to a $63 million funding gap for the project after $23 million in federal funds have yet to pass Congress and $40 million in state funding was delayed because IKEA did not break ground for construction this year.

City funds will go toward finishing Assembly Square Drive and building the new Orange Line station – both considered integral to starting development at the long underutilized 145-acre parcel of land.

“It’s a lot of money we’ll have to pay back every year,” said Ward Six Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz who eventually voted for the measure.

Community activists from the Mystic View Task Force had encouraged aldermen to delay a vote for further study.

“While we share the Mayor’s sense of urgency about identifying resources that can fill the gap in funding for the Orange Line T stop and other essential infrastructure, and while we agree that a DIF could be a reasonable tool for generating those resources, we are concerned that the proposed DIF saddles the city with too much risk and requires too little in the way of assurances from the developer. We believe that the artificially imposed December deadline for [aldermen] action needlessly precludes negotiating a more considered alternative that would reduce the city’s financial exposure and hold the developer more accountable,” task force member Fred Berman in a letter to the city.