Maverick Square: Looking Up in a Down Economy

A few things have become obvious to nearly everyone in this neighborhood as the construction of the impressive new building for the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center rushes to completion.

First of all, local merchants in the square have revealed that the potential cost for rental space for commercial operations has gone up dramatically.

It is expected that when the health center’s new headquarters opens sometime next year, that commercial space in the square will be virtually impossible to rent, which means other property owners with underutilized spaces will be put in a position of thinking about re-doing their properties to meet the demands of the new era.

For Maverick Square, the new health facility building is the rough equivalent of a casino opening its doors.

Hundreds of laborers and trades people have been working on the structure, which is a construction project worth in the area of $20 million.

Jobs have been created. Goods and services have been contracted for. Local rents for small spaces have been rising in anticipation of the EBNHC moving in when the project is complete.

When that day finally arrives, this building will become one of the busiest places in East Boston outside of the airport.

Hundreds upon hundreds of people will visit the EBNHC everyday and they will want to eat, to shop, to have a coffee and a treat and when they discover Maverick Square, these many new visitors to our neighborhood, they will find that this is a welcoming, vibrant, changing, together neighborhood of Boston quite unlike any other – and they will come back.

That’s the benefit of having such a wonderful anchor come into the square.

That anchor will spawn a dramatic rise in economic activity in the square. It already has.

City planners should take advantage of this grand new project rushing to completion and get another one underway and then do another one after that.

Growth spawns more growth. Success begets success.

The EBNHC building and headquarters in Maverick Square is already a big winner – and it is still months away from being completed.

That’s saying something in a down economy.

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