Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is panning a claim by Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue that by converting downtown office buildings into housing, Boston is “developing the next slum.”
“He said that ... about downtown Boston?” Wu asked incredulously on Tuesday when informed of Minogue’s comments on GBH News’ “Boston Public Radio.”
“Look, I will be the first to say that there’s a lot more work to do, and we are nose to the grindstone every day trying to address every single block of sidewalk and every, every single streetlight,” Wu added. “But it sounds frankly like someone running for governor has not spent time in our neighborhoods if that’s — if he’s afraid to be in downtown Boston.”
In a video posted to X in March, Minogue — who just won the Mass. GOP’s gubernatorial endorsement in a landslide — traveled by helicopter over Boston with podcaster Kevin Cooney. As they hovered over downtown Boston, Minogue decried the lack of new construction and the decline in commercial real estate values before focusing on a tax break offered to developers who convert commercial buildings to residences.
“Now they’re going to go spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to convert these expensive, depreciated, open spaces into housing,” Minogue said. “They’re going to be subsidiz[ing] it. It’s not going to be low cost, and the only reason people are going to be able to afford it is going to be rent control subsidies.
“Rent control destroys the area you put it in,” Minogue continued. “The developers won’t invest in it. It’ll be people that don’t get it, their prices go up. The people that get it never leave it. It doesn’t work; it’s never worked. All they’re doing is developing the next slum.”
Rent control is currently illegal in Massachusetts, though a proposed 2026 ballot question could change that.
After suggesting that Minogue is afraid to visit downtown Boston, Wu rhapsodized about recently spending time on Boston Common during Massachusetts Space Week with her husband and kids, along with a hundred space mavens eager to see Jupiter and its four largest moons.
“People were all about walking around ... 9:30 [p.m.],” Wu said. “There were ducks walking by that the baby was fascinated with. People walking their dogs, stopping and saying 'What’s going on? Oh,yeah, I want to see Jupiter too!’ It was incredible.”
Then, after touting the impending arrival of Shakespeare on the Common and the opening of a new Uniqlo store downtown, Wu returned to the subject of office-to-residential conversions.
“[We’ve created] 1,800 units of gorgeous new housing in this office to residential conversion,” Wu said. “I have brought houseplants and housewarming gifts to some of our residents and seen the inside, when these older, beautiful, beautiful buildings get renovated with such care and turned into housing.
“So yes, we certainly have things that we need to continue doing, but it is incredible here. And it sounds like someone needs a reality check.”
Asked after the show if she had additional comment on Minogue’s claims, Wu said through a spokesperson: “I never heard of this guy before a few months ago and don’t follow his social media.”
Minogue’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
