Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh stated in 2016 that “Equity is not only essential to achieving a just society, but it’s also a strategic imperative for our economy.”  A year prior to his statement the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published a report titled the Color of Wealth in Boston showing that white households in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston have a median net worth of $247,500 while black households in Roxbury have a median net worth of only $8 despite a distance between the two neighborhood measuring only one mile.

While the inequity in Boston is the result of the confluence of several factors, maintaining a supply of good-paying jobs remains the most effective remedy. Stable income expectations make it possible for a household to maintain good banking relationships, acquire a home, and put itself on a path to wealth building. The stability of income expectations in Boston’s low income neighborhoods is threatened by the falling affordability of commercial and manufacturing real estate in those neighborhoods. The success of the technology, life sciences, and financial services industries has resulted in a growing number of high income new Bostonians - individuals and households seeking home ownership opportunities in Boston’s tight real estate market. It has also resulted in a growing number of well-supported and VC-funded startup and operating companies vying for a shrinking stock of office space. Labor and trade businesses located in communities where employees live and work are rapidly declining to this “new economy”.

Real Estate developers have seized on the opportunity and have expanded the stock of housing and commercial real estate into low income neighborhoods and communities of color. This encroachment has caused lease rates to rise to the point where small manufacturing operations are no longer able to afford to remain in Boston. According to Cabbot and Company, asking rents in the Roxbury/Dorchester area were $22.66 per square foot in 2019. Lease rates greater than $20 per square foot have become the norm in an area where businesses that don’t operate in new economy sectors require rates lower than $15/sf.

The current state of the industrial real estate market is putting at risk a significant number of Boston small manufacturing businesses that are the generators of jobs for the community. Without a stable place of operation, it is not possible to expect improved job creation.

The GDIC will be the campus that hosts small manufacturing businesses that are being displaced by Boston’s real estate market conditions. It will offer lease rate at a significant discount to market rates and an escalation mechanism that reflects the business conditions of the member businesses. Campus businesses would offer products to the consumers, who could come and purchase local homemade artisan products, similar to the “ retail outlet” concept but for locally produced products direct from the producer.

Here is a list of a few local Boston Companies that would be tenants or owners:

• Commonwealth Kitchen

• About Fresh/ Fresh Truck

• Chinese Golden Age

 

This campus would allow for companies to own their building and stabilize their costs to remain in the City of Boston. These companies service and employ Boston.