Greenway projects lose more ground

Fallout from the collapse of a Big Dig tunnel is expected to delay the opening of the first parks on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway by six months until next spring.

But even before the accident, another essential part of the Greenway -- the cultural buildings that will provide recreational facilities and hide highway ramps -- was years away from completion and risks being delayed further because of the tunnel problems.

Some delays facing the Greenway are the result of complications caused by the tunnel collapse. But, for the most part, the hurdles stem from problems that predate the accident and had been growing over time: repeated delays in the Big Dig construction schedule, bureaucratic inertia, drawn-out negotiations with the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and financial and other problems at the institutions themselves.

One Greenway anchor, an arts and culture center, is not scheduled to open until 2011, as it struggles to get government approvals. Other buildings, including a museum, a YMCA and community center, and a harbor parks pavilion, are stalled or face serious money shortfalls and may not be built at all. A glass-boxed ``winter garden" is all but dead.

Mark Maloney, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said the problems that developed over the years have led to the Greenway being ``horribly delayed."

The Greenway was envisioned as the crowning accomplishment of the Big Dig, a dozen blocks of public spaces and cultural amenities that would elegantly rejoin downtown Boston with its waterfront. Bostonians and commuters who suffered through 15 years of disruption and construction were to be rewarded with an urban jewel after the highway was done.

Like the Big Dig itself, projections for completion of the Greenway have been pushed out into the future several times. As recently as 2001, project officials predicted a 2005 ribbon cutting for the entire Greenway.

Now the first two blocks of parks fronting the North End won't open on schedule, because the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversees both the highway and park construction, slowed work to allow traffic diverted by the tunnel closings to move through downtown Boston. ``There were some inefficiencies by not being able to allow construction to proceed as it has been," said turnpike spokeswoman Mariellen Burns.

Moreover, a major facility planned for the Greenway, the New Center for Arts and Culture, was close to getting a development deal with the turnpike in early July, nearly two years after the Turnpike Authority first chose it for a location near Rowes Wharf. But that agreement has since been stalled as the authority grapples with the tunnel issues.

The I-90 connector tunnel and portions of the Ted Williams Tunnel were closed after July 10, when falling concrete ceiling panels killed 38-year-old Milena Del Valle of Jamaica Plain.

The remaining six blocks of parks are expected to open on schedule by the end of the next summer, turnpike officials said this week.

The Turnpike Authority is undergoing a jarring transition in both leadership and focus: chairman Matthew J. Amorello was ousted by Governor Mitt Romney after the accident, and the agency is now focused on fixing faulty concrete ceiling panels and determining the cause of the failure, threatening to push projects such as the Greenway to the sidelines.

``I don't think anybody knows what the continuing fallout from all of this will be," said Peter Meade, chairman of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy board.

Druker now estimates that getting a development agreement from the Turnpike Authority for the New Center, negotiating a lease, and then undergoing permitting by the city of Boston could take more than two years. That will be followed by fund-raising, fine-tuning, and construction, putting the center on schedule to open in 2011 at the earliest.

``That's the craziness of what it takes to do something in our city and just generally," Druker said.

Turnpike officials said they have moved as rapidly as possible on the project and said internal problems at the New Center contributed to the delay. Despite the most recent setback because of the tunnel collapse, turnpike officials said they expect a development agreement with the New Center will be signed in the near future.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, after hearing of Druker's latest time estimate, predicted the city's permitting process could be completed within six months.

Other buildings facing delays or other problems include:

The Boston Museum Center, which also lacks key deals with the turnpike 20 months after winning the turnpike's designation for a block near Faneuil Hall. The delays prompted the project's president, Anne D. Emerson, to postpone major fund-raising. The organization has raised $2.25 million of the estimated $90 million it will need. In 2004 Emerson hoped for a 2012 opening. Now, she said she cannot put a date on a possible completion.

The $4.5 million Harbor Parks Pavilion, a tourist center for national parkland in Boston Harbor. Its proponents are redesigning the glass structure after a construction estimate recently came in at twice the budgeted amount. Thomas B. Powers, president of the Island Alliance, which is managing the project, said the organization is hopeful it can open the pavilion near State Street in 2009.

The YMCA of Greater Boston last year dropped its plans to build a $42 million Y and North End community center after cost projections skyrocketed to $69 million, largely because of the expense of building over new highway ramps. The YMCA, as well as the museum and the New Center, are due to share in $31 million the Legislature recently authorized for coverage of the new downtown ramps. The Y's share of that would be $16 million, but the organization has not yet decided whether to restart the project, said president John M. Ferrell.

Uncertainty continues to surround the three blocks near South Station, a fourth of the entire Greenwa, where the Massachusetts Horticultural Society had promised to build a $100 million winter garden. Despite repeatedly failing to come up with its own money or a viable plan, Mass. Hort recently got $2 million from the Turnpike Authority to build parks there instead.

The winter garden failure and all the other delays have those who have long been involved in the Big Dig questioning how much longer Boston must wait to get its promised urban jewel.

``The expectation was that the parks and building development along the Central Artery corridor would come soon after the completion of the highway portion," said Anne Fanton, former executive director of the Central Artery Environmental Oversight Committee. ``In reality it's going to be possibly another decade."

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

(Correction: Because of reporting and editing errors, in an article about the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway on Page One on Saturday, the full name and title of Ronald M. Druker, chairman of the board of the New Center for Arts and Culture, were omitted.)