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Going up

Liberty Mutual

BostonCityWalk stopped on a walk to snap the new Liberty Mutual headquarters going up on Columbus Avenue.

Copyright BostonCityWalk. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

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Comments

Latest round of the Great American Jobs Scam...

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how many people have jobs now building said new office?

I'd guess significantly more than if it weren't being built.

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This was a massively profitable project even without the tax giveaways-Liberty Mutual would have built it anyway. They got the land for about $25 million (because the zoning was either 100 or 150 feet). There were some modest demolotion costs. Then the city tripled the zoning, violated longstanding development policies against allowing pedestrian flyovers, in contradiction to a two year planning process in the rest of the neighborhood eliminated ground level retail/restaurant AND gave them I think about $30 million (and it looks like it was almost double that but this is a number discounted for inflation) in city tax breaks and state development grants on a project that is profitable to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars the second they cut the ribbon. Bottom line - this was happening with or without the tax breaks - the zoning alone was worth hundreds of millions to LibMu. At best we pulled demand forward which is never a good thing - it only creates bubbles and surpluses down the road -but this city never learns that lesson.

To argue otherwise is to say we have to start paying people to buy land in the city.

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vs long term employment.

Would the million in taxes be better spend building educational buildings at our run down state colleges and universities, which then attract more students.

The state school system after all pumps more than 5 billion into our economy. Much more than LM will ever do.

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This city needed another building?

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we get any construction going. Those construction and office jobs that come with a new building are totally not needed.

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Glad some guys are getting some work, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the construction workers are from New Hampshire. I wonder how many new office jobs will actually be created as a result of this- enough to justify $20 milllion in tax expenditures?

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I know! Most great world cities have no buildings at all, just acres and acres of empty fields. Some of the more garish ones have trees in the fields but let's not get ridiculous

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Will wanted some gimmes and nobody specifically asked his permission! He wants them to sign his agreement to fund a "household assistant" to provide support and cleanup for Occupy Home, and provide low-cost vouchers for the local packy.

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I am surprised at the speed of this going up!

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Remember, Liberty threatened to pack up and move to NH if Boston didn't give them the tower they demanded.

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I watched a showdown between company honchos and the city council, and the company specifically said it wasn't planning to move from Boston even if it didn't get the tax breaks, just that it might not expand here.

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That PR bullshit was just political cover for everything that Stevil said above. If you honestly think they'd pack up for Manchester, NH; you're pretty damn gullible.

This thing was agreed upon behind closed doors, and the threat was obvious cover for the city to point and say, "look we had to break all our rules and also give them taxpayer money".

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