June
29,
2007
Editorial/The Daily Item
With a $2.5 million state grant announced
Thursday, a last major obstacle in the way of development
of Lynn’s
waterfront – the South Harbor power lines – will
finally be removed.
Moving the power lines is essential
to the city’s
vision of a coastal corridor of new, mixed residential,
commercial complexes, with plenty of green space and a
boardwalk.
Since he left the Legislature to
become state undersecretary of business development,
Bob Coughlin has visited the city on a least two occasions;
he has listened to Lynn EDIC’s
waterfront plan and toured the South Harbor to view the
power lines.
Coughlin has developed a close friendship
with the city’s
Legislative delegation and particularly Rep. Steve Walsh,
and Coughlin obviously had the ear of Gov. Deval Patrick
and Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Dan O’Connell,
and was able to convey how vital relocation of the power
lines is for Lynn.
This is a major victory for Walsh and the Lynn delegation,
for James Cowdell and the Lynn EDIC, for Community Development
Director Hal McGaughey and Mayor Edward Clancy, all who
succeeded in presenting the vision for the waterfront and
making the right contacts within the Patrick Administration
to secure the funds.
An added bonus for the city is the
143 new jobs over the next five years to relocate the
lines. And there’s
little doubt the project will make the stretch of coastline
from the General Edwards Bridge to the Lynn/Nahant rotary
much more attractive to potential investors.
And on the opposite end of the corridor,
another major development was announced in April, that
Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises has the former
Beacon Chevrolet site under agreement. Indeed, the right things are
happening to make the Waterfront Master Plan a reality. As
Walsh said, “I am confident Lynn’s waterfront
will become the gem that we always knew it could be.”
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