New wave of business

Marine industrial development is growing along the Boston waterfront

By Susan Diesenhouse, Globe Correspondent, 9/27/2003

This week, Legal Sea Foods' new $11 million white and turquoise processing facility will be fully operational on the South Boston Waterfront.

"After 10 years of trying, we finally have our new plant," said chief executive Roger Berkowitz, popping with pride over the 75,000-square-foot plant and its customized state-of-the-art equipment. "We had to wait for the infrastructure to come along, and now we're starting with a clean slate."

Gazing at the towering downtown skyline, he marveled in a whisper, "We're lucky industrial users like us are still allowed in a place with views like this."

Spectacular views aside, these days the Boston waterfront is abuzz with construction activity, much of it surrounding the new convention center, new roadways, high-end offices, and expensive condominiums. Over the next 25 years, about 20 million square feet of commercial and residential space will be built around the harbor, according to Boston Redevelopment Authority estimates.

But, without much fanfare, there's also been a resurgence of marine industrial development on the section of the harbor farthest from downtown.

Since 2000, eleven other seafood processors besides Legal have moved into three new buildings with 105,000 total square feet, including the $10.5 million, 65,000-square-foot Harbor Seafood Center, said Lowell L. Richards III, chief of development for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which manages Boston's commercial port, Logan International Airport, and much of the city's waterfront real estate.

Land for these new projects was set aside by Massport and the city in their 1996 Port of Boston Economic Development Plan. Now, fish and seafood facilities occupy about 500,000 square feet in the area. Overall, marine industrial users, including terminals, dry docks and warehouses, sit on 400 of the approximately 1,000 acres at the South Boston Waterfront, according to Massport. In the next few years, Richards expects another 100,000 square feet of seafood processing facilities and about 250,000 square feet of marine bulk cargo and warehouse space to be built in the 40-acre Massport Marine Terminal, which is part of the Boston Marine Industrial Park.

During the early 1900s, when the commercial port was booming, the area was filled with finger piers and dry docks to service ships, a Navy yard, and an Army base.

By the 1970s, shipping activity had dwindled, and the US military sold the land to the city. A decade later Massport leased the land to Subaru for car imports. Since the mid-1990s, the 40-acre Marine Terminal has been used to stage excavation for the $14.6 billion Big Dig. At the height of Big Dig construction, the site was little more than a dirt mountain range. Gradually, the dirt peaks are disappearing.

Now, "The Big Dig has given the area great access," said Richards. He noted that for trucks packed with edible pearls from the sea, the new haul road, bridges, regional highway interchange, and Ted Williams Tunnel have transformed a 35- to 60-minute slog through downtown traffic to the airport into a 10-minute micro-commute.

Still missing is the freight rail service that was suspended during the Big Dig and the construction of the $700 million Boston Exhibition & Convention Center, scheduled to open next summer. But freight rail is slated to return to the area around the Marine Terminal, he said.

Meanwhile, he added, "The Legal plant demonstrates that Greater Boston is among the world's top fish processing locations and that the port is still a center for skilled blue-collar jobs."

Fish purveyor Berkowitz said that moving out of a jerry-rigged four-building facility in Allston and into the streamlined plant and corporate headquarters will mean greater efficiencies and new capabilities for the business. It has water-impervious floors, cold storage holding rooms, a 20,000-pound lobster tank, and a fish-testing laboratory that Berkowitz calls "the in-house health department."

With computer-run Icelandic cutters for swordfish and tuna loins, custom steamers and other kitchen appliances, he said, "We'll be able to do things that we can't do at our other locations, like make chowder stock from fresh fish bones."