DownTown CRoSSinG— BaCk in BUSinESS

Suffolk University’s Center for Real Estate and
The Greater Boston Real Estate Board present
Building Boston 2030:
Downtown Crossing—
Back in Business
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
7:45–9:15am
Sponsored by
Building Boston 2030:
Downtown Crossing—
Back in Business
Welcome to the second event of the Building Boston 2030 series, jointly
sponsored by the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University and the
Greater Boston Real Estate Board.
This three-part series is designed to encourage a statewide dialogue on
public policy and business considerations that can be implemented to
ensure that Boston continues to create good jobs and retain a highly
employable and skilled workforce. The forums bring together prominent
leaders in Boston’s business, academic, media, and civic communities
to discuss the city’s future and to exchange ideas about development
opportunities.
Today’s economy offers unique challenges for local businesses. To
remain competitive in the global marketplace, Boston must find ways
to handle budget constraints in the public sector and increase investors
in the private sector. It is our hope that this series will also generate
strategies for Boston to attract private capital to spur the innovation
for which our city has always been known.
Today’s topic, Downtown Crossing–Back in Business, is quite timely, as
development plans for the old Filene’s site and other vacant spots along
Washington Street are becoming a reality.
Many thanks to Richard Taylor, director of the Center for Real Estate,
and Gregory Vasil, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate
Board, for developing this series.
We hope that you enjoy today’s event and keep a lookout for our next
event in early December.
Sincerely,
William J. O’Neill, Jr.
Dean
Building Boston 2030: Downtown
Crossing–Back in Business
Boston has been recently dubbed the “smartest city in America.”
This well-deserved moniker recognizes our world-class universities,
international thought leaders, and medical and technological centers of
excellence; and honors our outstanding cultural institutions and
our place in history as the home of the nation’s first public library
and schools.
Boston remains one of the great cities of America.
Long considered a flourishing hotspot, Boston’s Downtown Crossing lost
momentum after the demolition of the Filene’s building and the closing
of major retailers like Barnes & Noble. Today, it is in the midst of a major
transformation as efforts are made to revitalize the area.
Suffolk University’s Center for Real Estate and the Greater Boston Real
Estate Board present Downtown Crossing–Back in Business as a discussion
on the future of the area, which is already experiencing pockets of
growth. Development leaders will exchange ideas about new retail,
housing, office, entertainment, and hospitality opportunities that can
contribute to the area’s ongoing transformation.
For live Twitter updates during the event, follow @SUBizSchool and use
#BuildingBoston2030.
The Building Boston 2030 Series
Forum 1: November 29, 2011
How do we attract innovative and emerging companies to Boston and
retain them—not simply as sources of private and venture capital, but as
committed contributors to Greater Boston throughout the growth and
production phases of their enterprises?
Forum 2: June 13, 2012
How do we transform Downtown Crossing into a new destination to live,
work, and play?
Forum 3: Early December 2012
How do we leverage smart growth, the volunteer and philanthropic
sectors, sustainability concepts, and our diverse demographic trends to
remain competitive?
Program
Welcome Remarks
James McCarthy, President, Suffolk University
Gregory Vasil, President and CEO, Greater Boston Real
Estate Board
CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE ANNOUNCEMENT
William J. O’Neill, Jr., Dean, Sawyer Business School
Student Competition Announcement
Richard Taylor, Executive in Residence, Sawyer Business
School, and Director, Center for Real Estate, Suffolk University
Panel Discussion
Roger Berkowitz, President and CEO, Legal Sea Foods; and
Trustee, Suffolk University
Howard Elkus, Principal, Elkus Manfredi Architects
Randi Lathrop, Deputy Director of Community Planning, Boston
Redevelopment Authority
Rosemarie Sansone, President, Downtown Boston Business
Improvement District Corporation
Michael Tesler, Founder and Partner, Retail Concepts
Moderator: Peter Howe, Business Editor, NECN
Questions & Answers
Join the discussion and follow @SUBizSchool on Twitter
and use #BuildingBoston2030; follow the Sawyer Business School on Facebook.
Welcome Remarks/ JAMES McCarthy
James McCarthy became Suffolk University’s ninth president on
February 1, 2012. Prior to joining Suffolk, he served for five years as
provost and senior vice president at Baruch College of the City
University of New York.
President McCarthy has served as dean of the School of Health and
Human Services and professor of health management and policy at the
University of New Hampshire. In addition, he was director of the Center
for Population and Family Health at Columbia University and the
Heilbrunn Professor of Public Health at Columbia’s School of Public
Health. He has been on staff at Princeton University; The Johns
Hopkins University; the International Statistical Institute, London; and
Trinity College, Dublin.
He is a sociologist by training and has worked and conducted research
in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United States.
He has published widely on community, adolescent, and reproductive
health issues.
President McCarthy earned his PhD from Princeton University, his MA
from Indiana University, and his AB from the College of the Holy Cross.
Welcome Remarks/ Gregory Vasil
Gregory Vasil is president and CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate
Board. He is a graduate of Tufts University and Suffolk University Law
School. He practiced environmental law for more than 15 years and has
extensive experience in government, policy, and regulatory matters. He
was head of the Massachusetts Environmental Strike Force responsible
for prosecuting environmental crime, and a senior vice president
at MassDevelopment, for which he worked on public/private real estate
development projects in Massachusetts. Vasil is currently a faculty
member at Boston University’s Metropolitan College, teaching in the
real estate finance certificate program.
Under his leadership since 2005, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board
has grown in membership from 5,500 members to more than 8,000
real estate professionals who are involved in all aspects of the industry.
Moderator/ Peter Howe
Peter Howe is NECN’s business editor, reporting each night for NECN
Business and other news programs. Each Sunday, he joins NECN’s This
Week in Business with co-hosts Mike Nikitas and Greater Boston Chamber
of Commerce President Paul Guzzi. Howe serves as interim host of
NECN’s CEO Corner.
He joined the network in 2008 after two decades at The Boston Globe,
where he was editor or co-editor of “The Globe 100” for four years
and covered the Massachusetts State House, Big Dig, Boston Harbor
cleanup, Boston City Hall, and business beats including airlines, energy,
telecommunications, and technology. His work has won awards from
groups including The Associated Press Media Editors (formerly known
as The Associated Press Managing Editors) and Society of American
Business Editors and Writers. Howe graduated from Harvard College.
Panelist / Roger S. Berkowitz
Roger S. Berkowitz began working in his family’s fish market in
Cambridge’s Inman Square at the age of 10 and held a variety of roles
prior to becoming president and CEO in 1992. Since taking the helm of
Legal Sea Foods, he’s led the company’s growth and diversification. He
now oversees the restaurant, retail, and mail order divisions and steers
the course for 4,000 employees.
He is a member of the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank
of Boston and on the regional selection panel for the President’s
Commission on White House Fellowships. He also leads the Sonar
Project Ltd., and was appointed to the Special Commission Relative to
Seafood Marketing by the governor of Massachusetts. He is a member
of the Massachusetts Workforce Training Fund Advisory Committee
and a member and past president of the Massachusetts Restaurant
Association.
In addition, Berkowitz serves on many nonprofit boards, including those
of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Children’s Hospital Boston (advisory
board), UNICEF, the Boston Children’s Museum, the Environmental
League of Massachusetts, and the Blue Frontier Campaign. He is a
member of the board of overseers, Brandeis International Business School;
and a trustee of both Suffolk University and Salem State University.
Berkowitz also serves on the leadership council at the Harvard School of
Public Health.
He graduated from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University and
attended executive education programs at Harvard Business School,
University of London School of Business, and Stanford Graduate School
of Business. He holds an honorary master’s degree from the Culinary
Institute of America and honorary doctorates from Johnson & Wales
University, Newbury College, and Salem State University.
Among his numerous awards and recognitions, Berkowitz was named
a James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur semifinalist, inducted into the
Menu Masters Hall of Fame by Nation’s Restaurant News, and received
the Chairman’s Award for Distinguished Meritorious Service from the
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
Panelist/Howard F. Elkus
Howard F. Elkus is an internationally acclaimed architect and urban
designer. He has been responsible for the design of many of the country’s
most exciting and game-changing mixed-use projects. Since cofounding
Elkus Manfredi Architects in 1988 and previously as a principal of The
Architects Collaborative, he has consistently broken new ground with
visionary work. His recent projects include signature buildings such
as the new Las Vegas City Hall and two 47-story glass residential towers
being erected on the Hudson River in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In the 1980s,
Elkus designed Boston’s Copley Place, the prototype for today’s mixeduse urban centers. Thirty years later, he is now adding the 43-story
luxury residential Copley Tower above it. His other large-scale mixeduse destinations are equally legendary—The Shops at Columbus Circle
in the Time Warner Center in New York City, City Place in West Palm
Beach, and Miami Worldcenter. Currently, he is creating the next
generation of transformational mixed-use destinations with the remaking
of Boston’s iconic Faneuil Hall Marketplace.
His international work launched with the 1978 master planning of the
financial center and design of the 1.3-million-square-foot Government
Insurance Systems headquarters on the Manila waterfront, a project that
was at the forefront of green design. Current work spanning multiple
continents includes major mixed-use projects on prominent sites in
Abu Dhabi, Beirut, and Istanbul, among others.
Elkus received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from
Stanford University and a Master of Architecture with distinction from
the Harvard Graduate School of Design. One of the youngest architects
ever to be elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute
of Architects, he was the principal designer of the institute’s Washington,
DC, headquarters.
Panelist/ Randi
Lathrop
A neighborhood visionary, Randi Lathrop serves as the Boston
Redevelopment Authority’s (BRA) deputy director of community planning.
A former teacher and arts gallery manager, she moved to Boston’s South End
in 1985 and took an active role in her neighborhood’s revitalization efforts.
Lathrop was past president of the Blackstone Franklin Square Neighborhood
Association and a founding member of the Washington Street Neighborhood
Association. She later chaired Mayor Thomas Menino’s Washington Street
Task Force and was named the first president of Washington Gateway Main
Street Inc., a business development and neighborhood improvement organization dedicated to nurturing and sustaining the economic vitality of the
1.4-mile district along Washington Street in the South End and Lower Roxbury. Lathrop served as president from 1997 to 2007. Since the organization’s
formation, more than $650 million has been invested in Washington Street
from public/private partnerships. The National Trust for Historic Preservation
and its National Trust Main Street Center awarded Washington Gateway Main
Street with its 2005 Great American Main Street Award for its successful revitalization efforts. The American Planning Association also named Washington
Street one of its Great Places in America in 2008.
As deputy director at the BRA, Lathrop manages the community planning
staff for the department that oversees planning initiatives and re-zoning
for Boston’s neighborhoods. In addition to her work in the South End, she
worked with the Fenway community for five years on the re-zoning and
planning of the East and West Fenway neighborhoods.
She was also the co-director of the award-winning master plan for the
Massachusetts Turnpike Air Rights, paving the way for Fenway Center—the
first air rights project built in the last two decades.
Currently, Lathrop leads a team of professionals at the BRA to identify a
branding strategy for the Downtown Crossing area, and she sits on the
Downtown Boston Business Improvement District (BID) board that represents
the mayor.
Lathrop also worked on the planning and re-zoning of the Harrison Avenue/
Albany Street area in the South End, as well as the city’s Food Truck Initiative
and the Christian Science Plaza Revitalization Project. She has received the
Boston Municipal Research Bureau’s 2011 Henry L. Shattuck Public Service
Award in recognition for her outstanding contributions to the City of Boston
and the Fenway Alliance Exceptional Spirit Award 2011.
Panelist/ Rosemarie Sansone
Rosemarie Sansone is president of the Downtown Boston Business
Improvement District (BID) Corporation, a private non-profit organization
founded in 2010 and funded by property and business owners representing
more than 525 properties in Downtown Crossing, the Ladder District,
the Theater District, and parts of the Financial District. Working to
achieve downtown’s full potential as a thriving destination, the BID’s
primary functions are to create a clean, welcoming, and vibrant
environment for everyone who experiences the district; to increase
business activity; and to attract further investment in the area.
Prior to the BID’s creation, Sansone led the two-year campaign to create
Boston’s first business improvement district, which involved meeting
with hundreds of property and business owners, non-profit organizations,
and residents committed to this revitalization effort.
Sansone began her professional career in advertising working for Ogilvy
and Mather in New York and Hill Holliday in Boston. Her career spans
more than three decades in both the private and public sectors, encompassing work in government, public affairs, advertising, and fundraising.
She served on the Boston City Council as an elected at-large member
during the challenging times of Proposition 2 1/2 in the late 1970s. She
then managed the successful campaign for district representation, which
gave underrepresented neighborhoods a voice on the Boston City
Council. In the early 1980s she continued to serve the City of Boston
when she was appointed director of the Mayor’s Office of Business
and Cultural Development.
Prior to the creation of the Downtown Boston BID, Sansone served as
public affairs director at Suffolk University for 13 years at a time when
the University experienced unprecedented real estate expansion and
development.
Sansone studied liberal arts at Suffolk University and earned a master’s
degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
She received an honorary doctor of fine arts degree from the Art
Institute of Boston. She has studied fine arts at the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts’ Museum School, Kaji Aso Studio, the Art Institute of Boston,
the DeCordova Museum, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown,
Massachusetts.
Panelist/ Michael Tesler
Michael Tesler is founder and partner of Retail Concepts. As such, he is
the in-house retail expert and strategist.
He has spent most of his life working in or surrounded by retail. He
cofounded Gatepost, a specialty clothing store that operated 11 locations
in three states. As COO, Tesler managed all facets of the business,
allowing him to understand the unique challenges that independent
retailers face. He also boasts a background in corporate retail, having
served as an executive with Filene’s and Filene’s Basement. In this role,
Tesler was involved in retail merchandising and management.
He likes to share his knowledge with retail clients and with his students.
Tesler teaches retailing at Bentley University, and has served as a board
member for the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association,
the Prince School of Retail at Simmons College, and the fashion advisory
board at Fisher College. He is also a member of the Council of Advisors
and a RetailWire BrainTrust panelist.
Tesler graduated with a BA in economics from the University of
Massachusetts–Amherst, and an MBA from Boston University.
CENTER DIRECTOR/ Richard Taylor
Richard Taylor is executive in residence and director of the Center for
Real Estate at Suffolk University. He is responsible for designing and developing a full range of undergraduate and graduate real estate courses,
and for forging academic and professional partnerships in real estate
development.
Taylor has development experience in the residential, retail, and commercial sectors of the real estate industry. He has developed in excess of
$300 million in real estate, largely in Boston’s urban markets. His development projects include Douglass Plaza, Olympia Tower, Fountain Hill,
and Bradford Estates. He has also been a general partner in the development of retail establishments surrounding Orange Line and Red Line
MBTA stations.
In his early real estate career, Taylor was vice president of development
at FMR Properties, Inc, where he worked to convert the old Commonwealth Pier in Boston Harbor into Boston’s World Trade Center.
During the real estate recession in the ’90s, Taylor joined Governor Bill
Weld as his first secretary of transportation. For this two-year period, he
was very active in “horizontal construction,” reestablishing rail service
from Worcester to Boston and overseeing much of the construction of
the Ted Williams Tunnel and the Dudley Station Bus Terminal. He initiated construction for the new South Station Bus Terminal, as well as the
Old Colony Commuter Rail project. He also started construction on the
$14 billion Big Dig project.
He is a past chairman of the Urban League and The Partnership, past
president of the Boston Ballet, and the founding president of the Minority Developers Association. He has been deputy chair of the board of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and chairman of the board of the MBTA.
Taylor also completed a six-year term as a gubernatorial appointment to
the Board of Higher Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and his JD from
Harvard Law School. He also holds honorary degrees from Wentworth
Institute of Technology and Bridgewater State University.
Our Hosts
Greater Boston Real Estate Board
Founded in 1889, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board (GBREB) consists
of more than 8,000 professionals engaged in all sectors of the real
estate industry. A local board of the National Association of Realtors®,
BOMA International, and the National Apartment Association, GBREB
is considered unique nationally due to its varied and diverse membership
base. GBREB’s mission is to provide advocacy for issues that affect the
real estate industry, offer continuing education to improve it, and give
back to the community through public service and philanthropy, as well
as to provide networking opportunities for its members.
Suffolk University Sawyer Business School
Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School is located in Boston,
Massachusetts, and educates more than 3,000 undergraduate and
graduate students.
The mission of the Sawyer Business School is to prepare successful
leaders in global business and public service. The Business School offers
an undergraduate degree in business and the following graduate degrees:
MBA, Global MBA, Executive MBA, as well as specialized master’s degrees
in accounting, finance, taxation, healthcare, and public service.
Business School alumni span the globe and can be found working in
all facets of the government, financial services, accounting, and small
business arenas.
The Business School is accredited by AACSB International–the Association
to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the National Association
of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, and the New England
Association of Colleges and Schools.
the Center for Real Estate
Founded in 2012, the Center for Real Estate was formed to manage the
real estate programs at the Sawyer Business School and to serve as
the vital link between the University and the real estate community. The
Center supports the exchange of real estate knowledge through academic
programs, conferences, and research.
The Center also offers academic programs to Suffolk students and is
developing continuing education programs for industry professionals.
To promote dialogue with local and national industry leaders, many
of the Center’s events—including the Building Boston 2030 series—are
open to the public.
Student Vision
and Design Competition
Undergraduate students at the Sawyer Business School were asked to
provide a development and design vision for Downtown Crossing. Each
team was asked to examine in detail the Downtown Crossing Business
District (from Boylston Street to Court Street, along Washington
Street and its adjacent streets) to consider how to transform the area
into the “Harvard Square of Boston.” The aim was to assess what can be
improved to make this a 24/7 community for those who work during the
day, those who live in the area, and in particular, those who are part of the
growing student population in this neighborhood. Each winning group
will receive $1,000.
Winners:
1. Eric Lachance, Alyssa Bartlett, and Nick Schaejbe
2.Brooke Weldon and Derek Domino
3.Lijay Malkah and Michael Sodano
Thank You to
Our competition Sponsors
Suffolk University
Alumni Association
Save the Date
The last public forum in this series will be held in
early December.
For more information on this upcoming event as well as
today’s panel discussion, visit www.suffolk.edu/realestate.
Building Boston 2030
Planning Committee
Richard Taylor, Executive in Residence,
Sawyer Business School and Director, Center for
Real Estate, Suffolk University
Gregory Vasil, President and CEO,
Greater Boston Real Estate Board
Theresa Malionek, Director,
Marketing & Communications, Sawyer Business School
Eliza Parrish, Senior Director,
Alumni Engagement, Suffolk University
Julie Schniewind, Director, Corporate Learning Initiatives,
Institute for Executive Education and Lifelong Learning,
Sawyer Business School
Produced by OMC 041612 • Cover photo by David Lancaster