The Revitalist

The NY Times has an interesting article on the development activity in the Fort Point. The neighborhood has attracted the attention of Tony Goldman of Goldman Properties, "one of the inventors of SoHo." He has acquired 17 buildings in the district in partnership with the Archon Group and plans to rebrand the neighborhood as the Boston Wharf District. To that end, he has restored the historic Boston Wharf Co. sign. The article nicely points out that, Goldman is not the first kid of the block in the Fort Point. Boston-based Berkeley Investments has already acquired 13 buildings and embarked on a similar development strategy (developer-supported boutique and destination retail/restaurants that will create neighborhood cache and support higher rents). And of course, there were the original pioneers of the neighborhood, the Fort Point artist community, who has bought several buildings and developed the Midway Studios. As a board member of the Fort Point Cultural Coalition said, "We do take exception to some of the comments that a white knight developer is going to ride into the wasteland and turn it into a new neighborhood, because it already is a neighborhood."

It is obvious that the district has enormous potential, let's hope that it survives the battle of the developers' egos. Making the Fort Point into a vibrant neighborhood is going to require a certain amount of investment, but it's not hard to imagine. Linking that neighborhood to downtown and the waterfront (on the other side of the Convention Center island) is going to be much trickier...