With Dudley delay, Boston has its share of city-owned blight - San Francisco Business Times:

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However, there’s a lesser-knownm stalled project that hasn’gt grabbed headlines. It’s a project Meninoo started and hasn’t finished. It’s in the hearr of Roxbury’s Dudley Square wher e a partially demolished building is a blight in what is alreadyg an ailingurban center. Demolitionb began on the site of theformer Ferdinand’s furniture building and abruptly stopped for the very same reasones that have ensnared other developers — lack of The eyesore is a reminder of long-awaited developmentf and decades of unfulfilled promises.
Last year the city tore down an eight-storuy building connected to the Ferdinand building with the intention of redeveloping the historic property intoa 200,000-square-foo mini City Hall where 800 city workersx would be stationed. Today the site is a vacant lot surrounderd bychainlink fence. The windows of the former Ferdinand’s furniture a prominent building in the heart of the are covered byblue tarps. The projecy is on hold indefinitely or until the city’s financial situation improves, Menino said in a recent interview.
Askedf when the city will proceed with its own projecrt in the hurting Menino offered an answer similar to those providede by private developers whose projects stallede during thecredit crunch. “You tell me when the financesz of the city is goingto improve,” the mayot said. “We have to put our resources into our operational budgetand that’s one of the reasonsw we haven’t started the redevelopment,” said Menino, who wantws to move city services nearer residential neighborhoods as part of a broad scheme to move City Hall to the South Boston waterfront from its current Government Center Menino said the demolition of the buildingy adjacent to Ferdinand was appropriatse given the property was vacant and in “completee disarray.
” Demolition of a deteriorating building is totallyg different than what the ownerds of Filene’s did, he said, whichh was to tear down a building with an active Last November, when the Filene’s developers announced they were taking a “time the city was reviewing design proposals it solicited from architectsw for Ferdinand. By January it became cleatr the city would have toslow down.
In architects who submitted design proposals for theoriginal 200,000-square-foot building received a letter from Joseph Mulligan III, deputy directorf of Capital Construction for the city statinh that given “global economic conditions” it was in the “public’ s best interest to reconsider the scope of work.” The new plan callsd for a smaller building between 100,000 squared feet and 150,000 squarr feet. Mulligan said the smaller building should costabouf $90 million and is about a year off the originao groundbreaking schedule of 2012. A new request for proposals is imminent.
” “The city is approachin this project in the same way any development entitu is assessing their projecft inthe country,” Mulligan said. Dudley Square has long been targete d as an area in desperate needof redevelopment. But private dollard have been hardto attract. And when it comew to public investment, the neighborhood is an “outcast,” said lawyerf Donald E. Green, who has an office in the square. “It think Dudley is a stepchild of allMayor Menino’s “We’re excited about it and hope that it goes said Ron Garry Jr., the owner of the Dudley grocery Tropical Foods.
“We think that Dudley could really use that shot inthe However, the current appearancwe of the building and economic conditions leavee people like Joyce Stanley, executive director of the non-profiy Dudley Square Main Streets Revitalizationm Corporation, to question the She called the Ferdinand building “aa blight on the district.” Progress has been made in otherr parts of Dudley, where the city is moving forwarc with plans to build a new B-2 Districy Police Station and has investedf millions in other parcels.
Recentlhy Menino and the caused a firestork in the community when the agency yankefd designation from a developmentr group that planned to builea $400 million, mixed-use projecg on a city-owned piece of land known as Parcel 3 on Tremont Street. The city and BRA claimed the development team coulsd not prove its project was financially Last month, after community outcry, the designatioh of Elma Lewis Partners LLC was extendes 18 months. The city’s own project is an obviousx exception.
“I think people recognize that they’r e trying to get all this done simultaneouslhyand it’s not easy in this said Darnell Williams, who is presidentg of the and chairman of the Roxbury Strategix Master Plan Oversight Committee. “Thiws is not what I call ‘you open up a box, put some milk in, a few eggs and put it in the oven and you have a he added.