South Shore Insider: Seaport Hotel GM watched the waterfront transform - Enterprise News
It really depends upon the time of the year. In the aggregate, it's mostly business. We're a corporate hotel. We do a lot of corporate meetings. We have 200,000 square feet of meeting space. ... We're right next door to the (Boston Convention and Exhibition Center), so we also get a lot of affiliated business with the BCEC. But if you look at say, March or February - school vacation - all of a sudden, we become a family destination, and I would say that 70 percent of our hotel is filled with families coming in.
There's a lot more of a draw. Back when I came, I was very fortunate. I didn't have to do any heavy lifting. The Big Dig was completed, and all of a sudden, that barrier - or perceived barrier - to the Seaport came down. And all of a sudden, it was like the Berlin Wall came down, and everybody came. We now have Liberty Wharf, Barbara Lynch's empire, Strega, the ICA. ...
It's more, I think, the aggregation of things. We were very early. Really, we're pioneers. . All of a sudden, then Liberty Wharf came. Now you've got Vertex Pharmaceuticals - a million square feet (will be built). ... It is the largest lease ever in the history of Boston. Louis, (the) clothing store is down here. Who would have thought Louis would be plucked right out of Newbury Street and put right down here on the waterfront? So there's an awful lot of things. Of course, the BCEC - that's the 800-pound gorilla right here. So there's an awful lot going on, and it's happening very quickly.
We work very closely with them. It's a partnership. It has to work for us, it has to work for them. One of the groups coming up, BIO (the big biotech convention), that's coming back, they did not have enough space at the BCEC, if you can believe it, to house this. They needed the entire World Trade Center. We said, we'll do that, to support bringing BIO back to Boston, because (of) what it means for the city. So we're very good partners, and we work in a very symbiotic relationship.
That's a tough one. It all depends how it rolls out. ... Does the BCEC expand first, and then the hotel? We're still waiting to see how that all folds out. There's also a public funding component to that, and that will be controversial for a while, I think.
Actually very good. . I think the state legislature understands how important tourism is to Boston and greater Massachusetts. Boston is often used as a springboard: People come for a conference in Boston, but then they'll go out to the Berkshires or down the Cape, and extend vacations. Also the mayor is very involved with a lot of the signings at the BCEC, so he understands. So I think for all those reasons, we're very fortunate. . There are only a few cities in the country where the hotel business is strong, and Boston is one of them.
It has actually impacted the timeline, I'd say, of the growth. I think there was an expectation that we'd already see Waterside Place in the ground. We already thought we'd see the Seaport Square development happening. But I think now with the Vertex Pharmaceuticals (project), I think that's going to be a huge catalyst for change.
Housing. ... (I'd) like to see a grocery store and some retail, like a CVS or Walgreens, something of that nature. A grocery store - all of South Boston, actually, would use that. We want it to be a 24/7 community, not a pure business clientele. We want it to be a place where people want to live, people want to walk around the streets. .. If people want to live here, then visitors will want to come here.
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