By Seth Daniel
The Wynn Boston Harbor team has been on a spending spree over the last month – and even stretching back to January – buying out properties along Lower Broadway for millions of dollars.
The Independent identified seven properties purchased in the Lower Broadway area this year, including five over the last month, for a total cost of $10.125 million.
One of the biggest expenditures was for the LTI Limo company on Bow Street, which public records showed a Wynn subsidiary purchased for $5.65 million on June 30.
Over the past month, Wynn has been particularly active in purchasing property on Mystic Street.
The transactions identified by the Independent include:
- 12 Mystic St., purchased on July 15 for $300,000 from Panda Construction.
- 35 Mystic St. purchased on July 11 for $900,000 from Roy and Anita Merenda.
- 40 Mystic St. purchased on July 11 for $975,000 from Francisco Pineda and Tomasa Figueroa.
- 51 Mystic St. purchased on June 28 for $650,000 from Trilok and Ratna Manandhar.
- 27 Lynde St. purchased by a company controlled by Mintz Levin associate Dan Gaquin (who has worked on the Wynn project land acquisition team) for $675,000 on March 31 from John Desmond Trust and Romulo Rodrigues Aguilar.
- 21 Lynde St. purchased on Jan. 11 for $975,000 from Zappa Realty Trust and Mastrocola Management. The facility was formerly used as an auto detailing shop.
Wynn officials said on Tuesday that they have no definite plans for the properties right now other than landscaping them.
“We have purchased several properties for landscaping features and look forward longer term to work with the City of Everett on their master plan for Lower Broadway,” said Chris Gordon, president of Wynn Resorts Design and Development Massachusetts.
At a public meeting on Monday night in City Hall, it was unveiled that Boston Freightliner – also located on Bow Street and across from the proposed casino main entrance – would be purchased by Wynn and relocated to the old GE site.
Wynn purchased the old GE site recently to carry out a plan of relocating some businesses from Lower Broadway to another part of Everett. According to the Middlesex South Registry, the sale of Freightliner hadn’t yet gone through and posted publicly.
It was approved by the Everett Board of Appeals as the first business to relocate there. (see separate story)
Wynn has already worked out a deal with the McDonald’s on Lower Broadway, having it move to an empty parking lot just to the north of the current location. Meanwhile, they will build a service road through the site where the current restaurant sits.
That was worked out last month.
Naturally, the company also purchased land from the MBTA many years ago for $6 million in order to build a service road to a warehouse on Charlton Street and to the rear of the forthcoming casino.
The purchases of the properties listed above were not made by the Wynn company directly, but rather by recently formed Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) subsidiaries that trace to Wynn executive Jacqui Krum and the Station Landing address of the Wynn office.
Wynn has said in previous stories in the Independent that it doesn’t plan on buying up all the properties in the Lower Broadway area, and for instance, it has chosen to this point not to purchase the Honda Cars of Boston dealership. However, it has said it would purchase lands needed to improve the aesthetics of the area and, more importantly, to create the layout of the road improvements in and around the casino.