In this edition: Why Mass. rents are out of whack, Healey weighs new tax credit, Gillette celebrates 125th birthday.
Jon here, following one of my favorite sagas: the convention center expansion debate. I take a look at a newly assembled 40-person coalition aimed at building community support.
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Featuring: John Barros, Jim Rooney, Martha Sheridan, Kate Dineen, Nate Costa, Don Law, Eneida Roman, Alain Mathieu, David Gibbons, Jon Davis, Marcel Vernon, Zachary Parolin, Peter Lynch, Katie Everett, Ken Griffin, Juliana Azevedo, and more.
Every March, the Seafood Expo North America draws nearly 20,000 people to South Boston from around the world to talk fish.
But come 2030, the event’s organizers at Diversified and its 1,200 exhibitors may be in the market for something bigger. That’s when the growing expo could exceed the available exhibit space at the already-sprawling Menino Convention & Exhibition Center.
Sure, there are other fish in the sea, but convention boss John Barros does not want this signature show to be the one that got away. And Diversified isn’t the only restless Massachusetts Convention Center Authority client. That’s why the MCCA interim executive director is trying what his predecessors failed to do: kick-start an expansion of the 22-year-old South Boston facility.
To pull it off, Barros appointed a strategic plan advisory committee, consisting primarily of business leaders and other key players in South Boston, the Back Bay, where the Hynes Convention Center is located, and Springfield, home to the MassMutual Center.
Who’s in the room? Usual suspects, such as Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce CEO Jim Rooney, Meet Boston chief executive Martha Sheridan, A Better City’s Kate Dineen, and Springfield Thunderbirds president Nate Costa. Some unexpected choices, too, like Live Nation impresario Don Law, Eneida Roman from We Are ALX, and sports lawyer Alain Mathieu at Foley Hoag. In all, it’s a 40-person gang, checking most boxes. But it’s also kind of unwieldy for quick deliberations.
And, yes, their timeframe is a short one. They met for the first time on Sept. 10, when Barros outlined what he’s trying to accomplish. His goal: to have a bond bill to help pay for the expansion filed with the state Legislature early next year.
The focus isn’t just the South Boston location, but also work at the Hynes and MassMutual. Still, Barros is particularly worried about the flagship Southie complex losing ground to Boston’s competitors like, say, Los Angeles and Dallas.
Barros is considering a new ballroom and more exhibit and meeting room space in South Boston, along with a theater or other neighborhood amenities. In Springfield, new seating areas or restaurants. The Hynes could be better integrated into the neighborhood. Meanwhile, he wants the MCCA to become more of a convener by generating new event ideas. Maybe one focused on women’s sports, or Boston’s answer to the famed J.P. Morgan healthcare conference in San Francisco.
The MCCA has been down this road before. More than once, in fact. When Rooney ran the convention center authority, he nearly got the bonds out the door to build a billion-dollar expansion. The Legislature gave him the green light. But then Charlie Baker became governor in 2015 and quickly put the project on pause.
David Gibbons, Rooney’s successor under Baker, tried in 2019 for a more modest expansion, to be funded by offering up the Hynes for redevelopment. The Back Bay freaked out, and legislative leaders soured on the plan. The pandemic hit. Eventually, Gibbons surfaced another modest expansion plan without jettisoning the Hynes. It didn’t get far, either.
Now, it’s Barros’s turn. The pandemic is long gone, and the convention business is booming again. Can Boston keep up?
One selling point: no new taxes. The Convention Center Fund, which helps cover MCCA budget shortfalls, collected $240 million from tourism taxes in just the 2025 fiscal year. The debt service on the original Southie facility was recently paid off, making room for new borrowing.
Rooney, wearing a different hat today, says Barros’s biggest challenge may be fielding questions about the overall state of the industry, and how Boston fits, particularly when stacked against warmer cities with year-round convention calendars. (Rooney, too, designed an expansion plan based around the convention center fund revenue, without raising taxes.)
Dineen suspects the Legislature will be open to the bond bill: It builds on a broader statewide economic development strategy pursued by the Healey administration, showing love to Western Massachusetts as well as Boston.
For developer Jon Davis, another committee member, expanding in Boston is a no-brainer, considering the Seaport was a sea of parking lots when the MCCA opened, and now it’s a thriving new neighborhood. (Davis is one of the people behind the massive Omni Hotel across the street.)
Will Barros be there to shepherd this legislation? The Healey administration appointed him on an interim basis in January, after a high-profile clash between the MCCA board and predecessor Marcel Vernon. But Barros is talking now like someone who will stick around.
Gibbons tried an expansion without engaging the broader community. By recruiting 40 potential ambassadors for the project, Barros isn’t making the same mistake.
SHIRLEY’S TAKE
YOUR TURN
Should the state expand the Menino Convention Center? Vote in our poll here.
HEARD AROUND TOWN
BUILD HOUSING, FIGHT POVERTY
It seems like a no-brainer: New research from the Pew Charitable Trusts indicates that the housing shortage is a major driver of poverty in states with the highest housing costs. But the analysis reveals just how intertwined they are: A 20 percent decline in rents in Massachusetts could reduce overall poverty by 20 percent. Pew draws on research by University of Oxford professor Zachary Parolin and lays out how increasing supply can be an effective anti-poverty tool on par with expanding the child tax credit. The study also shows how out of whack the Massachusetts housing market has been over the past three decades: rents rose the fastest of any state, while incomes at the low end grew at one of the slowest rates, and housing supply increased only 36 percent, far below the national pace.
KING-SIZE BIRTHDAY
All hail, King Gillette! There aren’t many companies around celebrating their 125th anniversary, let alone ones that employ roughly 1,200 people in Boston. But this week, that’s what Gillette (now part of Procter & Gamble) did. King Camp Gillette launched the business here 125 years ago, bucking conventional wisdom by developing a disposable razor blade, and thus building the foundation for a shaving empire. P&G Gillette CEO Juliana Azevedo shared a message with employees on Monday, celebrating the milestone. The company marked the day with cupcakes for workers, and encouraged them to share their own memorable Gillette moments. Manufacturing will be leaving its longtime South Boston home but P&G Gillette won’t: It’s developing a $1 billion headquarters next-door to its existing campus where 750 corporate and research employees will work, hopefully ensuring they’ll stick around for at least another 125 years.
SHOULD DONORS GET EXTRA CREDIT?
Will she or won’t she? That is the question before Governor Maura Healey when it comes to a new $1,700 tax credit passed by Congress in 2025, to reimburse donors who give to scholarship programs. As of August, 30 governors have opted in. But Healey has said she’s waiting to see federal regulations, due out any day now. Famed Fidelity investor Peter Lynch and Katie Everett, who runs Lynch’s family foundation, met with Healey and others in her administration last week to press the issue, describing this credit as one of the greatest philanthropic opportunities ever in this country. They came away encouraged. But Healey also faces a steady drumbeat of opposition from teachers’ unions, who argue the credit could drain resources from public schools. Then there’s the issue of her Republican opponent, Mike Minogue; he is an outspoken fan and has been talking it up for months.
DOUBLE TAKE
We knew making a game in the US would be more expensive than doing it in China. But we didn’t know how much harder it would be until we read the Wall Street Journal’s page one story this week about WS Game, a small game designer in Manchester-by-the-Sea. WS is responsible for those fancy versions of famous board games, from Hasbro and others, built to look like hardbound books, all made in China.
WS wanted an all-American version of Monopoly, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The company struggled to find US suppliers, and had to resort to normal plastic versions of houses and hotels instead of wooden ones. (And the dice still came from China.) The made-in-the-US Monopoly Americana edition sells for $80, compared to $45 for the company’s vintage bookshelf edition, from China.
But we were intrigued to see that the manufacturers named in the story are here in Massachusetts: the Cartamundi game factory in East Longmeadow and Pioneer Packaging in Chicopee. It illustrated what’s missing in the US toy supply chain, while also highlighting what Massachusetts has to offer.
ONE MORE THING
Oof. Wednesday could not have been a good day at the Harvard development office. One of the school’s richest alums, Ken Griffin, announced he is giving $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University – the largest-ever individual gift in higher education. The hedge fund manager has given plenty to his alma mater – over $500 million – but he has also been one of Harvard’s loudest critics. Carnegie is using the donation to build a new campus in Miami, where Griffin’s company Citadel is headquartered. In a New York Times interview, Griffin addressed the obvious question. “Is this a repudiation of Harvard? …. I think that misses the point,” he said. “I think Carnegie Mellon has the DNA that we need right here, right now in Miami.”
THANKS FOR READING POWER PLAY.
This newsletter was written by Jon Chesto and Shirley Leung, edited by Aaron Pressman, and produced by Dana Gerber and Asia Alexander.
Have a question for the team? Email us at powerplay@globe.com.
Delivered Tuesday and Thursday.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto. Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.