Business Monday — The Daily Boston Brief, September 21, 2026

Development

Four large projects already approved but not under construction would get targeted tax abatements under a $33 million proposal the Wu administration announced this week: Fulcrum Global Investors’ 408-unit, 16-story tower at 1 Mystic Ave. in Charlestown, Hines’ 318-unit building at 22-24 Pratt St. in Allston, Nordblom Company’s 333-unit complex at 83 Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton, and the 341-unit building D at Allston Yards. The deals are Chapter 121A tax agreements and still need the assessors’ sign-off. Chief of Planning Kairos Shen said at a Sept. 14 briefing that roughly a dozen other stalled projects of at least 100 units apiece are in play for future abatements, which together could add about 4,000 units. The announcement landed alongside real frustration that Boston is treating this project by project instead of rezoning. Boston is exempt from Chapter 40A, the state Zoning Act, so its zoning is the mayor’s to change, and the administration’s own upzoning program, Squares + Streets, has rezoned one neighborhood area since 2023: Roslindale Square. “Our suburban communities, at least on paper, have higher density to allow multifamily housing near transit than the city of Boston does near subway or light rail lines,” says Jesse Kanson-Benanav of Abundant Housing MA, who calls the neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach a way of “elevating the voices of those who are opposed.” Boston still requires a 20 percent income-restricted component in any development of seven units or more, and while Chelsea and Waltham have both scaled their requirements back this year, the city has not. Per Banker & Tradesman’s Steve Adams. Read more →

The courts

The Supreme Judicial Court rejected Marshfield’s bid to avoid the 2021 law that requires cities and towns near the MBTA to zone for multifamily development — unanimously, on every argument the town raised. In a 22-page decision upholding a lower court’s dismissal, Justice Serge Georges Jr. wrote that Marshfield’s complaint “does not plausibly allege” that the act imposed an unfunded local mandate, the town’s central claim; the state constitution bars the Legislature from imposing substantial costs on municipalities without a funding source, but the court found Marshfield never showed the rezoning cost it anything beyond ordinary administrative work. The court also called the act a “valid general law,” and held that the town and its select board lacked standing to bring a constitutional claim on behalf of town meeting voters. This is the second time the SJC has upheld the law, after a 2025 ruling that made it enforceable by the attorney general’s office; a few dozen holdout communities had been waiting on this one. Attorney General Andrea Campbell applauded the decision Friday afternoon. Per CommonWealth Beacon’s Jennifer Smith. Read more →

Restaurants

The breakfast-and-sandwich group is moving into 297 Main St., a storefront that was Johnny Pomodoro and, before that, New Speedy Chen’s. The plan surfaced in the Friends of Boston’s Hidden Restaurants Facebook group and is confirmed on the company’s own site, where the address is listed as coming soon; no opening date has been announced. It would be the seventh Mike & Patty’s counter, joining the original in Bay Village, High Street Place downtown, Logan Airport, Jamaica Plain and Bow Market in Somerville, plus a collaboration with Flourhouse Bakery in Newton’s Nonantum. The interesting part for Charlestown is that a neighborhood the city is about to hand $33 million in tax breaks to build 408 apartments is, in the meantime, filling its vacant storefronts with small local operators rather than chains. Per Boston Restaurant Talk. Read more →

JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine: Against Tech Oligarchy · Free · Tonight 7pm · Harvard Book Store

An MIT doctoral candidate and a Kickstarter union organizer on the inside story of tech labor organizing and the backlash that followed, with Ben Tarnoff moderating. The Monday-night companion to today’s feature, more or less.

Bikini Kill · Tuesday 8pm · Roadrunner, Boston Landing

Kathleen Hanna and the riot grrrl originals bring the reunion run to Brighton, a short walk from the Boston Landing commuter rail stop.

Wicked · Opens Wednesday 7pm · Citizens Bank Opera House

The Oz prequel returns downtown for a 64-performance run through Nov. 15. Performance times vary by date, so check before you book.

Charli XCX · Thursday 8pm · TD Garden

The arena tour lands at the Garden with The Underscores opening — the biggest booking on the building’s fall calendar so far.

Transit

The Federal Transit Administration sent a letter on Sept. 11 closing the safety management inspection it opened in 2022 and returning direct oversight of the T to the state Department of Public Utilities, the governor’s office said. The FTA’s letter credits the DPU with adding 13 full-time staff since 2022 and building out technical training and review processes for safety investigations, rules compliance and fatigue management. “We have officially closed the book on the serious safety issues we saw four years ago,” said DPU Commissioner Staci Rubin, who oversees the department’s transportation divisions. The announcement came the same week Gov. Maura Healey said she “absolutely” still has confidence in MBTA General Manager Phil Eng, who is also serving as interim state transportation secretary. Per CommonWealth Beacon. Read more →

Local

Massport held an open casting call at Terminal A on Thursday to find the new Voice of Logan, and hundreds queued up to read a prepared script that name-checks iced coffee, lobster rolls, the cannoli line in the North End and the Green Monster, “because it is” a sacred landmark. Announcements at the airport are currently read by the mayor or the governor; Massport Executive Director Richard Davey said they wanted “a more distinctive Boston voice.” Recorded submissions are also being accepted online. Opinions in line ran to the philosophical. “You got to have the Boston accent,” said Scott Grimes of Beverly. “If you have too many Rs in there, it’s a no-go.” Per GBH News’ Craig LeMoult. Read more →

City Hall

At a public meeting at the Bolling Building in Nubian Square on Tuesday, Mayor Michelle Wu told residents they will be able to opt in or out of the proposed game-day parking ban around Franklin Park: “It’ll be a street-by-street decision through the neighborhood associations.” As drafted, the ban covers a three-quarter-mile radius around the stadium, starts two hours before kickoff and runs until two hours after; residents with non-commercial cars registered to their address get permits, and anyone without a permit or visitor pass faces a $100 ticket and a $130 tow. The city’s latest transportation plan assumes 6,600 spectators arriving by shuttle from remote lots and T stations, 3,300 walking or biking and 1,100 by ride share. District 7 Councillor Miniard Culpepper is unconvinced: “We don’t have enough space around Franklin Park to accommodate what people are proposing.” Per the Dorchester Reporter’s Yawu Miller. Read more →

The Army Corps of Engineers released a draft Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study this summer, after four years of work with the city, covering Boston’s 47 miles of coastline. Its finding: by 2090, storms and flooding could reach more than 20,000 structures in Boston and do $54 billion in damage, and “it is not a matter of whether these changes will happen, but when.” The draft proposes more than 20 projects — floodwalls, levees, floodgates — at roughly $10 billion, of which the federal government may cover up to 65 percent if the work runs through the Corps. Writing in Banker & Tradesman, Tom Ryan of the business group A Better City argues the region cannot afford to let that match slip, and flags where the current draft falls short for the people who work there: a North End barrier that stops mid-neighborhood, leaving the Sumner and Callahan tunnels and part of the Blue Line exposed; the Chelsea Creek and Route 1A approaches that feed Logan; and the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park and its seafood processors in the Seaport. Per Banker & Tradesman. Read more →