5/15/2009: Boston Herald Ocean race floods Hub with $20M Boating event helps cover drop in tourists

By Donna Goodison

The Volvo Ocean Race wraps up its three-week stay here tomorrow, leaving $20 million in spending by spectators, sponsors and participants in its wake.

The Boost came at an opportune time for the city’s hotels, restaurants, retailers and other businesses, compensating for a large drop in corporate travelers. “That’s a huge shot in the arm given what the visitor economy has been experiencing, said Pat Moscaritolo of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau

But Moscaritolo and race officials acknowledge that increased publicity likely would have made the around-the-world race’s stop here more lucrative.

Yacht ocean racing is a niche sport that was competing against the Red Sox and the Celtics and Burins playoffs, according to Moscaritolo, who also believes the corporate branding of the race, left local media uncomfortable covering it.

“Once you brand the race with a name or a product, how may media outlets are going to give you (lots of) free publicity, especially in a day when no one’s buying ads anymore,” Moscaritolo said.

Volvo Ocean Race communications director Marcus Hutchinson acknowledged the event’s inability to attract adequate corporate sponsorship limited pre-race publicity.

“For sure, in this economic crisis, we didn’t secure the sponsorships here, and we didn’t have the revenue to spend on promotion and advertising that normally we would have expected to do in America,” Hutchinson said. “It’s a regrettable situation, but it’s worked out well, and the park was full when we wanted it to be full.”

Nearly 135,000 people had visited the Volvo Ocean Race Village eon Fan Pier as of Monday. The sailors received a “fantastic” reception, said Dave Endean, pitman and boat captain for Ericsson 4, which won the Rio De Janeiro-to-Boston leg of the 37,000-naticual-mile race and is in first place overall in the seven-boat standings. Endean knew that Marblehead and Newport were big sailing communities, but he wasn’t so sure about Boston.

“It took me by surprise,” said the native New Zealander, who met his wife, Blair, here five years ago.

The race’s seventh leg bound for Galway, Ireland, starts tomorrow. In the meantime, the Ireland Waterfront Festival kicks off at Fan Pier today at 5pm and continues until the race village closes at 6pm tomorrow.

It’s smooth sailing in the Hub By Ira Kantor

On a picturesque Mother’ Day, $25,000 sailing aficionados found themselves hooked by a series of gnarly Volvo Ocean Race events at Fan Pier

Along with a performance by the famed Boston Ballet and a special appearance by celebrity Chef Barbara Lynch, boating fans were able to watch seven teams compete in a Pro-Am sailing race.

As of yesterday, Team Ericsson 4 remains first in the overall rankings.

The racers are in town until Saturday when sailors begin leg seven of the 37,000-natical-mile marathon, to Galway, Ireland.

Boston is the race’s only North American port.

2.15.09: Travel New England/Boston Airport Journal Fan Pier Readies for Volvo Race in April

From April 27 to May 16, 2009 the Volvo Ocean Race will make its only U.S. visit at Boston’s Fan Pier.

In conjunction with the visit will be a series of events to celebrate the arrival and departure and a five-acre experiential and consumer-oriented Volvo Ocean Race Village, which will be free and open to the public.

As far as Fan Pier construction goes, its first 18-story building, One Marina Park Drive, will be completely enclosed by the time of the race.

No Boston neighborhood has seen more dramatic shifts in its core employer base in recent years than the South Boston waterfront.

Many of the area’s old industrial and marine uses have given way to financial and legal jobs. Those, in turn, are being overshadowed these days by the hospitality sector, with the convention center’s success and subsequent hotel projects.

Now, with tow massive redevelopments planned for the sea of parking lots there, another industry could be poised to become the neighborhood’s next rising star: life sciences.

Mayor Tom Menino’s administration has had some luck with drawing small life sciences firms to the area as part of his Life Tech Boston initiative.

But the deal that could act as the turning point for that industry involves Fan Pier, one of those parking lots that’s already abuzz with construction activity.

The Boston Business Journal recently reported that Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge is working on a major lease at Fan Pier to accommodate its rapid growth. Vertex isn’t commenting, so it’s hard to know how likely the move is. But developer Fallon Co. received the city’s approval last fall to allow lab space in the mix, so Fallon clearly sees a future in life sciences for the waterfront site.

The Menino administration has tried for some time to steer life sciences businesses into alternative locations to the already jam-packed Longwood medical area.

Other parts of Boston certainly have emerged as potential biotech clusters: the area in and around the Boston Medical Center and BU campuses in the South End and Roxbury; Mass. General’s outpost in the Charlestown Navy Yard; and Allston, where Genzyme has a plant and Harvard is expanding.

None of those areas, though, have quite the potential upside that the South Boston waterfront offers-with its proximity to an array of public transit options and the city’s financial district.

The city has seen other modest yet promising life sciences firms hang their lab coats in the area. New arrivals in the Boston Marine Industrial park in the past few years include Immunetics, Cytonome, and BioDefense Corp.

We’ve walked by the construction‐banner‐wrapped fences on our way to the ICA or a concert at the Pavilion more times than we can count. But recently, Fan Pier has begun to feel like a reality – and, thus, so has the concept of the Seaport District as a desirable, neighborly’ hood. Developer Joe Fallon’s vision for the 21‐acre harborside space includes luxury residences, restaurants and retail shops, a hotel and spa, and what’s sure to be some of the most in‐demand office space in Boston. The mini‐ neighborhood will eventually house a six‐acre marina‐ for those afternoons when you forgo the T in favor your 80‐foot yacht. Sure, we still have some waiting to do, but as we stare out offer that vast expanse, we can’t help but anticipate one of the future social hubs of the city.