The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • A10

A10 The Region The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2013 Menino to make new start, for himself and BU end of March that he would not seek a sixth term, and he enlisted the help of a longtime friend, David G. Fubini, a management consultant at McKinsey to vet job offers. Fubini said he helped Menino free of charge so the mayor could focus on running the city. Menino said he has recused himself from decisions involving BU since April, when he began considering a job there. "I just didn't want that conflict issue to be brought up," Menino said Tuesday.

"In this business of mine, reputation and integrity are very important. It's very important to the university, too." In January, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the university's master plan, a blueprint for adding 625,000 square feet to the campus in the next decade. The university has two major pieces of business pending before the city now, zoning approval for a life sciences building and final approval for a South End laboratory to study deadly infectious diseases. Brown has a keen interest in urban issues and has served as an adviser to Singapore for nearly two decades. When the mayor announced he would not run again, Brown said, "a light bulb went off" that Menino, paired with a more traditional scholar, could provide the right kind of leadership to do something unique.

Brown and Menino expect MENINO Continued from Page Al Menino has agreed to a five-year contract as a professor of practice, although he does not plan to teach courses. "This is not, 'Come be part of our faculty and teach a few said BU president Robert A. Brown. "We really think we can do something really significant and different." Menino is the key ingredient, Brown said, because his 20 years of practical experience running a leading American metropolis will help push urban studies beyond academic theory. "Without him, you don't have the credibility of knowing what you're talking about; it's all hypothetical," Brown said.

"And you don't have the force he's going to give us to push us to real-world outcomes. If it's totally academic, you will drift back into the paper writing mode pretty quickly." Menino and BU are expect-ed to make a formal announcement Wednesday at a press conference. Menino will leave office Jan. 6 and is expected to start Feb. 1 at BU.

The initiative will be within the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. It will have a budget of just under $1 million, funded by BU. Brown and Menino both emphasized that it is a real job with serious expectations and not a soft landing. Brown said WESTWOOD MARKETPLACE HOLDINGS LLC An aerial photo shows the location of the 130-acre University Station project along University Avenue in Westwood.

Vast project to get underway 'It's never been about money for me. It's about making a ALLEVATO ARCHITECTS The retail complex for the University Station project is shown in this rendering. University Station master plan 195J Detail Route 128 station (95) (495) Retail Hotel Retail residential Residential Senior housing WESTWOOD Continued from Page Al to turn the tides and start building value," said Nancy Hyde, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen in Westwood, which has watched its commercial tax base erode with the loss of General Motors and other industrial tenants. University Station is expected to generate $3 million in annual tax revenue and bring more than 400 homes to land around a major Amtrak and MBTA rail station in the next few years. The first wave of residences and stores, including Wegmans and Target, is expected to open in 2015.

Later phases will bring 350,000 square feet of office space, a 150-room hotel, and additional residences and stores. The project, though roughly half the size of a prior version, is still among the biggest in the state. Its mix of commercial and residential buildings is similar to larger-scale projects at Fort Devens and the former naval air station in South Weymouth. Like those developments, University Station is bound to face setbacks and delays due to the cyclical real estate market, but its fortunes are on an upswing now. "I don't think there is a better site in the state," said Douglass Karp, a principal with New England Development, the firm leading the project.

"Whether it's the offices, or the residences, or the shopping, there's going to be a lot to do here." A ceremony to mark the start of construction was scheduled for Wednesday, although contractors have been doing preliminary work on the property for some time. Governor Deval Patrick and other state officials were expected to attend the event. In his remarks, Patrick was expected to announce $5.5 million in grants to help pay for local road upgrades to manage traffic around the development. Additional funds are under consideration to make improvements along University Avenue. The state is also planning a broader reconstruction of the traffic-clogged interchange at Interstates 93 and 95.

In recent years, the Patrick administration has sought to make transportation improvements in places that would also spur private development, hoping to magnify the economic impact of the investments. Some of those efforts are now bearing fruit. Developers are building hundreds of residences and stores on a former industrial site at Assembly Square in Somerville. State and federal money helped to build a new access road into the property, and an Orange Line station is also being built at its edge. Other infrastructure investments have spurred construction of the massive Fan Pier de- Residential -Wegmans Office THOMAS M.

MENINO it was against university policy to reveal how much Menino will be paid, but he said the mayor's salary would be "very much in line with what we pay professors." Brown said Menino's pay would be within about 10 percent of the average salary for a full professor, which is $157,000. That could put Menino's pay roughly on par with what he makes as mayor: $175,000 a year. Menino said he asked for "whatever everyone else gets." "I could have accepted a job on the outside that would have paid me a lot more money, but it's not about money, for me," Menino said. "It's never been about money for me. It's about making a difference." The impression was different in 1984, when former mayor Kevin H.

White joined the BU faculty, with a car and driver and rumors of a high salary. There were at least two investigations into allegations of impropriety involving White and his academic post. He was never charged with wrongdoing. White's predecessor, John F. Collins, taught at MIT after he stepped down as mayor in 1968.

Longtime BU president John Silber was known for hiring big names Nobel laureates such as Elie Wiesel and Saul Bellow who did not always have a day-to-day presence on campus. Menino and Brown said their approach is different. "Totally different, a new president, a new atmosphere, new focus," Menino said. "Different times." "When we bring in senior people to the university, we bring them in with expectations," Brown said. "We don't hire a lot of people at the senior level.

Frankly, it's too easy to get trapped in this collection of senior people who don't add value, and it can be disheartening to the junior people." Menino said in January that he began "weaning" himself from direct dealings with BU and other potential job suitors. He announced at the ft Iff Jsslfe WESTWOOD professors to get involved from different departments, including political science, environmental science, and even engineering, and not just BU faculty. Brown expects graduate students to do research through the initiative, and he wants to connect it to the university's many study abroad programs. Menino's appointment seemed to get a good reception on campus. "Great to welcome him aboard," said physics professor William Skocpol, who helped revise BU's faculty guidelines to establish the position of professor of practice.

The concept "was created for exactly this kind of thing, for people who have special expertise, not necessarily professorial academic credentials, but they come in and they do good things for the institution and for the world." Some students greeted the news and the fact that Menino turned down offers from other universities, including Harvard as evidence of what their school has to offer. "It's another notch in our belt that we've had the opportunity to secure such a high-profile individual," said student body president Dexter L. McCoy. "This is an example of how great we really can be." Students will be able to find Menino in a second-floor office in a townhouse on Bay State Road, a quiet street of historic brownstones and brick apartment buildings. The staff will include an executive director and an assistant.

Unlike White, Menino will not be furnished with a driver by the university. That will be a significant change for the 70-year-old Menino, who as mayor has been driven by a police security detail for two decades. "That's the toughest part of this transition: Do cars still have clutches?" Menino joked. "I'll try to drive. That's going to be a change." Andrew Ryan can be reached at acryanglobe.com or on Twitter globeandrewryan.

NStar headquarters JLfri say it will provide a significant economic boost to the town and reduce the tax burden on homeowners. The developers have not yet signed any new office tenants, but the commercial rental market is steadily improving as the economy slowly regains steam. Hyde said the town would consider tax incentives to help lure new companies, though no such assistance has been requested yet. The first batch of apartments will be mostly one- and two-bedroom units, along with 64 assisted living residences for seniors. Karp declined to provide a price range for the units, but said developers hope the project's retail amenities and proximity to public transportation will command premium rents.

"If you work in Boston or Providence, or travel regularly to New York, it's a pretty easy train ride to any of those locations," Karp said. Those residences will be developed by The Hanover Co. and Gables Investment Trust. The project team also includes Eastern Real Estate, National Development, and Clarion Partners LLC. The group came together following the exit of Cabot, Cabot Forbes, which was delayed by permitting challenges and failed to generate enough funding to proceed with the project.

Even with the region's improving real estate market, it will likely take eight to 10 years to complete construction of the project, depending on the turns of the real estate market. After a decade of community meetings, delays, and revisions, public officials said they are relieved the work is finally getting underway. "It's really rewarding to be at this point," said Hyde, the selectmen chairwoman. "It's taken a lot of work by a lot of people to get us here." Casey Ross can be reached at crossglobe.com. Future development i i 400 FEET SOURCE: Westwood Marketplace Holdings LLC DAVID BUTLERGLOBE STAFF velopment in the South Boston Innovation District, as well as large-scale projects in Burlington, Lynnfield, and Worcester.

"We're seeing some very nice signs that the economic tide is rising," said Greg Bialecki, Patrick's chief of housing and economic development. "The first projects out of the ground are seeing success, and that is helping other developers make the case for private financing as well." Like other suburban projects in recent years, University Station is designed to function more like a city than a shopping mall. Its residences and offices will be arranged around an outdoor retail core, with several restaurants, retail boutiques, and a large fitness center. The development will also include 18 acres of open space with recreation areas and a village green. The project is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs over the next several years.

Despite its reduced size, public officials.