After weeks of hypothesis, outstanding actual property developer Thomas O’Brien has determined to run for mayor of Boston and plans to formally launch his marketing campaign subsequent week, a supply near the marketing campaign confirmed.
O’Brien, 61, is the founding companion and managing director of HYM Funding Group, which is behind main redevelopment tasks just like the Authorities Heart Storage downtown and Suffolk Downs in East Boston, and was head of a previous iteration of town’s planning division underneath former Mayor Thomas Menino.
He plans to formally launch his marketing campaign in East Boston alongside his household subsequent week, forward of Mayor Michelle Wu’s formal reelection marketing campaign launch, which is ready for subsequent Saturday within the South Finish, the Herald has discovered.
East Boston is sometimes called Boston’s Ellis Island because of its historical past as a serious immigration hub. Alongside together with his spouse, Tricia, O’Brien is anticipated to make his mayoral marketing campaign announcement alongside a few of his kids, who’re adopted from Columbia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Ethiopia, a supply confirmed to the Herald.
Politico Massachusetts first reported O’Brien’s choice to formally enter the race, and the Boston Globe had beforehand reported his curiosity in a mayoral bid.
O’Brien joins Josh Kraft, son of the billionaire New England Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft and longtime philanthropist, as outstanding candidates vying to oust Wu, a preferred progressive Democrat who’s in search of a second, four-year time period.
Whereas town’s municipal elections are non-partisan, O’Brien, like Kraft, is anticipated to run as a Democrat. Group activist Domingos DaRosa, an impartial, has additionally said his intention to run for mayor.
Greater than two candidates within the mayoral race would set off a preliminary election, set for Sept. 9. That main would whittle down the sphere to 2 candidates who would seem on the ultimate poll for the Nov. 4 municipal election.
O’Brien’s curiosity in operating for mayor got here to gentle simply a few weeks in the past, and hypothesis ramped up over this previous week when a ballot testing how he would fare towards Kraft and Wu in a mayoral race started circulating.
Whereas O’Brien was among the many builders who initially supported Wu’s stalled bid to boost industrial tax charges, which was broadly criticized by business teams, he might look to affix Kraft in in search of to capitalize on the frustration the actual property business has expressed with a few of the mayor’s insurance policies.
Alongside together with her bid to boost industrial tax charges at a time when the actual property business is grappling with post-pandemic workplace constructing vacancies and decreased values, Wu additionally not too long ago obtained approval from the Zoning Fee to hurry up net-zero emission necessities, and beforehand elevated affordability necessities, for brand new constructing building.
Kraft, who launched his marketing campaign in early February, has to this point rolled out a plan that might pare again affordability necessities, saying that the mayor’s insurance policies have exacerbated housing affordability.
Wu has garnered nationwide consideration of late, nonetheless, in coming off a powerful displaying earlier than the Congressional Oversight Committee, which is probing sanctuary cities and their impression on public security, earlier this month.
Her State of the Metropolis speech, the place she defended town’s immigration protections, drew a response from the White Home final week, and she or he appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” earlier this week.
O’Brien is a widely known actual property developer in Boston. In response to his HYM biography, his prior stints embrace serving as managing companion for JPI, a nationwide developer and proprietor of multifamily communities, and as managing director in Boston and New York for Tishman Speyer, one of many world’s main actual property companies.
He led the Boston Redevelopment Authority as its director and chief of workers, overseeing the event of greater than 12 million sq. ft of tasks in Boston, from 1993 to 1999, in line with his biography.
The Wu marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark, and the Kraft marketing campaign declined to touch upon O’Brien’s entry into the race.
After O’Brien’s curiosity in operating turned public a few weeks in the past, the Wu marketing campaign issued a pointed response.
“It is clear some developers are willing to do whatever it takes to buy this office,” a Wu marketing campaign spokesperson stated on the time. “It seems that Josh Kraft is not turning out to be what they expected and now they are shopping for a new option.”
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