Developer picked for 16 acres at Fort Point

Postal Service moves plan to redevelop annex site forward

The Postal Service has named the big real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle to develop the annex site it will vacate, 16 acres on Fort Point Channel in a rapidly developing section of downtown near South Station.

Jones Lang LaSalle beat out a team made up of the Beal Cos. of Boston and the Related Cos. of New York, as well as three other companies in earlier bidding, for the right to turn the property into a bustling mixed-use urban development.

Last year, the Postal Service said it would sell the site and move farther down Summer Street, next to the Reserved Channel on the South Boston Waterfront.

The selection of a developer begins a long process. Permitting for the annex's redevelopment and construction of a new Postal Service facility could take five years or more, officials said.

"Our piece of property seems to hold the key to the renovation of the whole waterfront," said Bob Cannon, public affairs manager for the Postal Service in Boston. "That simply can't happen while we stay here."

Jones Lang LaSalle executives said they will meet with abutters, neighbors, and city officials before deciding what to propose to build there.

The site is currently zoned to accommodate about 6.2 million square feet - or roughly the same amount tentatively planned for the 23-acre Seaport Square project on the South Boston Waterfront.

The Postal Service site is subject to the stringent limitations and requirements of the state's Chapter 91 law, which governs waterfront property, as well the city's exhaustive permitting process. In the end, the development could be smaller than current zoning al lows, in part because of the extensive amount of open space that could be required.

"Our plan will focus on the public realm and public access," said Daniel J. St. Clair, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle.

The developers will have to coordinate their project with the planned expansion of rail lines at South Station, which could include as many as six new tracks to accommodate increased commuter-rail traffic from the south and Amtrak trains.

The Postal Service will now begin negotiating a purchase-and-sale agreement with Jones Lang LaSalle. It could be completed this year, and under the current plan the sale of the site would not be completed until all city and state permits are in place, and a project of a specific size is proposed.

The price of the property would be determined by how much the developer is permitted to build.

Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association, noted the area has several other major developments in planning, including an office tower behind South Station, plus great access to transportation, all of which will result in an exciting new neighborhood.

But, she cautioned, it will take time.

"It's a very complicated site," she said. "It will just help to bring even more people down to the waterfront, but the planning itself is going to take many, many months."

Jones Lang LaSalle has experience in that. The firm, or Boston-based Spaulding & Slye, which it bought in 2005, previously managed the complex permitting for large development sites, including Fan Pier on the South Boston Waterfront, NorthPoint, a 45-acre mixed-use project in East Cambridge, and the redevelopment of historic Russia Wharf.

"We've master-planned 10 million square feet in 10 years," a happy Kyle B. Warwick, managing director for investment development of Jones Lang LaSalle, said yesterday. "That has been our expertise."

Jones Lang LaSalle is the managing partner in a joint venture on the Postal Service site with Walton Street Capital, a real estate investment firm it has had business relationships with before. The development team includes CBT Architects of Boston and urban planner Ken Greenberg of Toronto.

None of the three big sites Jones Lang LaSalle moved forward is finished, but all are under construction. NorthPoint is being sold but is stalled as its current owners, including Jones Lang LaSalle, resolve a lawsuit with their partner.

The Beal-Related team, which is building The Clarendon, a residential project in the Back Bay, expressed disappointment that it wasn't selected "to work with the USPS to develop what we believe will be a new front door to downtown Boston."

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.