BRA wants to borrow to clean up Charlestown Navy Yard; would repay bonds with new tax revenue

The BRA board yesterday approved a new way to spur more development in the Charlestown Navy Yard: Issue bonds to clean up decades of pollution that would then be repaid through the new tax revenue the development would bring.

The proposed Navy Yard Historic Monuments Area "development district" now goes to the City Council for its approval.

BRA officials say that despite recent development work in the Navy Yard, now owned by the BRA, some developers have been scared off by the complexities of cleaning up buildings that could potentially be rehabbed - and especially the complexities of finding financing for such remediation.

Indeed, in another vote yesterday, the board agreed to extend the time a developer has to arrange financing to turn the old Ropewalk building into apartments and a museum after it said arranging financing was proving more complex than expected due to the potential costs of cleaning up the building.

Under the BRA proposal, the city would clean up the accumulated pollution, then market the "clean" buildings to developers. The dedicated use of additional tax revenues from these buildings to pay for the cleanup would be done under a state "district improvement financing" law created for this sort of project.

BRA officials did not provide an estimate of the amount of the bonds they would issue under the proposal.