Wu outlines plans to convey downtown again to life

Mayor Michelle Wu will unveil a plan Thursday to revive a downtown hammered by the pandemic by making it much less reliant on workplace employees, with concepts that embrace serving to convert workplace buildings to housing, encouraging a greater variety of retail makes use of, and turning some metropolis streets into pedestrian methods.

“This report … displays what we wish downtown to be: a 24-hour neighborhood that’s open to everyone,” mentioned Segun Idowu, Wu’s chief of financial alternative and inclusion.

The report, executed for the town by Boston Consulting Group, echoes most of the themes of an motion plan the Wu administration launched in March, aiming to deal with the empty places of work and darkish storefronts attributable to the shift to distant work through the COVID-19 pandemic. However challenges abound.

Many workplace towers don’t lend themselves to residential conversions, and downtown stays an costly place to construct. Town will seemingly must wrap up a broad downtown plan earlier than making substantive zoning modifications. There’s no big pot of cash to assist. And success hinges on a fast transit system that’s usually sluggish and unreliable, and largely past the town’s management.

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