The Next Quincy (Patriot Ledger)

By Lane Lambert
Fri May 23, 2008
 
QUINCY - The Fore River shipyard’s Goliath crane has been the city’s dominant industrial landmark since 1975. But the pillars of Quincy’s economic future may not be so noticeable. Some may not be visible at all.

As Goliath’s dismantling nears, the city’s political and business leaders are laying the groundwork for a fresh wave of growth. If their plans take shape as hoped over the next decade, more office buildings will rise around Quincy Center, the Crown Colony office park and perhaps at the shipyard, too.

They also hope that new clusters of high-tech companies like the health-care data processor Pipeline Data and video-game creator 2K Boston will sprout, tucked away in back offices without so much as a sign to show they’re there.

Mayor Thomas Koch and others say the “Next Quincy” could, in the short run, at least, look a lot like the current one, but on a bigger level. That means more jobs in the medical, insurance and financial services fields – at companies like State Street Corp. and Blue Cross Blue Shield, the city’s two biggest employers.

But they say they also want to bring in fresh faces and industries, actively recruiting high-tech firms like 2K Boston, and maybe some biotech ventures as well.

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t attract them,” said Dean Rizzo, director of the Quincy 2000 business development group.

2K Boston, formerly Irrational Games, produced the popular game “BioShock.” The company moved from South Boston to Quincy on its own in 1997.

Koch said the city has talked with other small high-tech firms in recent months, though he declined to identify them.

Most growth will hinge on three projects: completion of the downtown concourse, which will open up Quincy Center parcels; construction of a new access ramp from the Southeast Expressway and Route 3 to the Crown Colony office park and Burgin Parkway; and zoning changes that will allow shipyard owner Daniel Quirk to remake the site into a mixture of shops, businesses, apartments and condos.

But it won’t happen overnight. The last phase of concourse construction isn’t scheduled to begin until 2009. The highway ramp to Crown Colony and Burgin Parkway won’t be finished until late 2009. And legislation to change the shipyard’s zoning from maritime to mixed use is stalled in a committee study.

Easy access and cheaper

While Goliath stands as perhaps the last reminder of an industrial past that shifted from granite quarries to manufacturing and shipbuilding, Quincy has relied on a post-industrial service economy for decades – and thus escaped the decline that has plagued Brockton and other old factory cities.

The Goliath was erected in 1974 and 1975 to help in building liquefied natural gas tankers at the shipyard. By the time General Dynamics closed the shipyard in 1986, the State Street Corp. complex in North Quincy and many other medical and corporate offices had already brought thousands of white-collar jobs to the city.

Koch and others say Quincy will continue to attract companies with the dual incentive of easy access to Boston and relatively cheap rent – typically $25 to $30 per square foot, or half the going rate in Boston and Cambridge.

“That’s where our bread and butter seems to be,” state Sen. Michael Morrissey, D-Quincy, said.

With 110 acres, the shipyard is the city&