Going up

This was a massively profitable project even without the tax giveaways-Liberty Mutual would have built it anyway. They got the land for about $25 million (because the zoning was either 100 or 150 feet). There were some modest demolotion costs. Then the city tripled the zoning, violated longstanding development policies against allowing pedestrian flyovers, in contradiction to a two year planning process in the rest of the neighborhood eliminated ground level retail/restaurant AND gave them I think about $30 million (and it looks like it was almost double that but this is a number discounted for inflation) in city tax breaks and state development grants on a project that is profitable to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars the second they cut the ribbon. Bottom line - this was happening with or without the tax breaks - the zoning alone was worth hundreds of millions to LibMu. At best we pulled demand forward which is never a good thing - it only creates bubbles and surpluses down the road -but this city never learns that lesson.

To argue otherwise is to say we have to start paying people to buy land in the city.

vs long term employment.

Would the million in taxes be better spend building educational buildings at our run down state colleges and universities, which then attract more students.

The state school system after all pumps more than 5 billion into our economy. Much more than LM will ever do.