Friends,

First, I want to extend my thanks to The Patriot Ledger for the opportunity to discuss this historic project on its Develop Quincy blog, and more importantly, for the invaluable public service The Ledger has provided over the last several years through its extensive coverage of downtown Quincy.

I hope everyone found this week’s introduction to the overall vision of the plan, our team, and the team from Street-Works Development informative and exciting.  Countless hours of work by many people allowed us to reach this point, but I stress that this is only the beginning. We have said this project will be the largest private investment in Quincy history, and by the same token, this will be the most extensive public process for any project in Quincy history.  It starts now.

A major part of that process is listening directly to you, our residents. This is your downtown, and we want to hear your ideas, your concerns, and help answer any questions you may have. I hope this forum will be a valuable tool to that end, and we are looking forward to  sharing our perspective here as well.

I’ll start with a general question we’ve heard a few times since beginning the conversation on downtown: How can we pull off a development plan of this scale in the kind of economic climate our City and nation now face?

We believe firmly that opportunities are often born from crisis, and this plan is a perfect example. We are looking at $1 billion in private investment, thousands of construction jobs, thousands of permanent jobs, and millions of dollars of new tax growth - the single most important factor in stabilizing taxes for our homeowners. Simply put, this is Quincy’s economic stimulus plan.

With the planning process beginning now, our financial advisors, the Street-Works team, and our independent analysts are all bullish that this project will be financed when it is ready to hit the market. Consider the $15 million Street-Works has already directly invested in downtown coupled with its prior experience in capitalizing projects of this scale as two important factors.

We will have more details as the process moves forward in coming months, but I can say that everyone involved to date, especially our administration, is confident in the future of this project and the future of Quincy Center.

I look forward to continuing the conversation, and please feel free to contact me directly at the office 376-1990 or via e-mail on this or any other matter.