For years, plans to change the brick wasteland that is City Hall Plaza into a more vibrant part of the city life has been bandied about by city officials. Officials have even tried to move events from the over used Boston Common to City Hall Plaza in recent years.
The underuse of this open space as contrasted to the overuse of the Boston Common has had advocates like Henry Lee speaking out about the danger to the plant life in the Common. Mr. Lee has spoken often how the ground on the Common is so compacted by people walking on it that it is almost like concrete that lets very little moisture through to get to the roots of the trees or the lawn itself.
Now this can all be changed.
Delaware North, owned by the Jacobs family that also owns Bruins, has been chosen to spruce up the City Hall Plaza. Their plans call among other proposals for an outdoor restaurant, a skating rink in the winter and sandy beach in the summer and probably the most ambitious undertaking of all – a ferris wheel. All these improvements will be privately financed.
We do not know if this plan will become economically viable for the investors, but the Jacobs family does have a history of running successful operations like the one that is being proposed for City Hall Plaza.
In addition, the Jacobs family is the major owner of a building – TD Garden – that could complement this revived City Hall Plaza.
The new Government Center MBTA Station would also complement this vision for the Plaza.
As in all business, nothing is guaranteed, but with competent and successful people proposing and running the operation, the first critical piece of a good business plan is in place.