Mayor ‘touched all the bases’

Hub real estate developers told the Herald yesterday that Mayor Thomas M. Menino's successor should stick to the five-term leader's focus on balancing the needs of Boston citizens with pro-business growth.

John Rosenthal, president of Meredith Management Corp., looks for the next mayor to follow Menino's legacy of "threading that needle between the neighborhood concerns and overall regional business and economic realities."

"It's not easy ... but Mayor Menino has done it brilliantly over the years," he said.

While many will point to the building boom during Menino's tenure as a lasting stamp of his administration, several developers said Menino's real legacy will be his work on behalf of city dwellers.

"There's no mayor in America that has been as committed a leader on homelessness prevention, and he and (New York) Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg have championed gun violence prevention for a long time," said Rosenthal, also the founder of Stop Handgun Violence, whose massive billboard fronts the Massachusetts Turnpike.

It's rare when an elected official is perfectly happy being in his role and not looking for higher office, Rosenthal said.

"It allowed Mayor Menino to focus every day on the city of Boston versus his future," he said.

Developer John B. Hynes III, CEO of Boston Global Investors, says Menino will be credited with "the rebirth and expansion of the city."

"Menino touched all the bases," said Hynes, who left the former joint venture behind the long-stalled Filene's project in Downtown Crossing last year and is developing the 23-acre Seaport Square in South Boston's Seaport District. "From a development perspective, he touched upon design, economics, private contributions to service public needs, expanded affordable housing and environmental sustainability — all good programs, all reasonable and fair."

Menino has championed the now-booming Seaport District, rebranding it as the Innovation District.

"Mayor Menino has always envisioned this area as a growth district, and for him, it was important that the uses would create a diversity of people and businesses," said Joe Fallon, whose Fallon Co. is developing the $3 billion Fan Pier project that includes Vertex Pharmaceuticals' new headquarters. "It's proven to be true. We now have life sciences, commercial, residential, a convention center, a (music) pavilion. It's a great story."

But, Fallon said, with all of Menino's milestone accomplishments, he kept one thing in mind: "He cared more about the people in the city than any development or expansion or perceived legacy."

And Fallon doesn't foresee the next mayor reversing course. "The city is growing, people want to live in the city — why would a new mayor want to change that?" he said.

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