This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 3/28/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, 2
Steve Bailey, Globe StaffThe best-kept secret on the Boston waterfront can be found at one of Boston's best-known hotels.
Between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. you can take an elevator to the magnificent rotunda room of the Boston Harbor Hotel. Except when the room is closed, you can walk out onto the balcony and get a spectacular, unobstructed view of the payoff for our $6 billion harbor cleanup. Unobstructed, I say, because no one is ever there. How would anyone know
This alleged public space was a trade-off for something-or-other the hotel developers wanted at the time. Now, harbor fans, you are about to get another fancy water-view balcony. Your benefactor: Les Marino, the Big Dig moneybags who is rumored to have his eye on the owner's box at Fenway.
Regular visitors to this space will recall that a couple of months ago I told you about Marino's problems on the waterfront. The owner of Modern Continental, which has won $2 billion in Big Dig contracts, had gotten caught adding an extra floor to the building he was rehabbing at 470 Atlantic Ave. You can see the steel for that 14th floor as you ride past on the expressway, but Marino has yet to secure the permits he needs for the work.
That was hardly Marino's only waterfront issue. The state Department of Environmental Protection fined him $10,000 for the violation, and added another $20,000 when he didn't bother to pay on time. The same agency is about to levy a $25,000 fine against Marino for building a ticket booth and restaurant on Long Wharf without a permit. On Commercial Wharf, Marino has been ordered to tear down an ugly cinder-block transformer building he put up at the end of the wharf (without a permit, of course). And Modern Continental was recently fined for dumping sediment into Fort Point Channel.
What does "More for Les" Marino have to do before he gets more than a tickle from the state? I've got three words for him and his regulator/enablers: Take it down!
But the state is not going to force Marino to take down his 14th floor - and send a crisp signal to the "Catch Us If You Can" school of developers. Instead, it is going to allow him to nearly double his office space on the floor and add a public observation area. The law firm that rents those top-dollar offices high above the harbor should enjoy that space during lunch, don't you think? Perfect for after-hours mixers, no?
As they say in the movies: "Permits? We don't need no stinkin' permits!" Consider what just happened in the Back Bay.
Last month a construction crew at 124 Beacon St. began demolishing a 19th-century carriage house and brick wall behind the handsome brownstone. The owner, Paul Zepf, hadn't bothered with the permits, either. The city's Inspectional Services Department stopped the work. But almost immediately the demolition team went back to work. The inspectors issued a second citation and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. Finally, the agency had to allow the owner to finish the demolition because the site was no longer considered safe.
"Ironically, the owners got exactly what they wanted," says City Councilor Michael Ross. "They were successful in illegally demolishing their wall and carriage house."
Said Zepf's attorney, Stuart Gray: "This is a situation that is going away through negotiations of all the parties."
The situation may be going away, but the carriage house and wall aren't coming back. When a developer gets caught - or makes "a mistake" in the vernacular of the business - he hires a lawyer. Marino has at least three lawyers working on his mistake, including R.J. Lyman and Willard Pope, former state environmental regulators. And he's getting his office space.
Imagine if "More for Les" actually bought the Red Sox. One Monday morning we could wake up to find the Green Monster in a heap of rubble. Mistakes happen. And that's why we have lawyers.
Steve Bailey can be reached at 617-929-2902 or by e-mail at bailey@globe.com.
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