Business
THE BOSTON GLOBE TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/BUSINESSC
By Victoria McGrane
GLOBE STAFFH
unkered next to the I-93 over-
pass, low-slung and surround-
ed by asphalt and cement, the
Charlestown building doesn’t
exactly scream Top Tier Presi-
dential Candidate. In fact,
there isn’t any outward indica-
tion on the vaguely industrial cement fa-
cade that Senator Elizabeth Warren’s
2020 campaign operation hums away on
the other side of the glass doors.
More than 100 people work at War-
ren’s campaign HQ, but Warren herself is
not often around; she spends most of her
time criss-crossing the country, speaking
to voters, and taking selfies.
Warren has no assigned office space in
Charlestown. Neither do campaign man-
ager Roger Lau or any other top brass. It’s
a departure from the typical campaign
setup and a deliberate choice aimed at
fostering more collaboration.
“I hate closed doors and offices,” says
Lau. “Closed doors mean that people are
not interacting.... We decided that it’s
important for people to work together.”
When Warren does come, she spends
her time circulating and chatting with
staff. Her golden retriever Bailey has
WORKSPACE,PageCWork
SpaceInside the
headquarters
of Elizabeth
Warren’s
presidential
campaign,
scenes include
(clockwise from
top left) a suit
of armor
bearing the
rallying cry of
“Persist;”
staffers on
scooters; a wall
of letters from
supporters;
and a lending
library put
together by
PHOTOS BY BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFF staff.Running a
presidential
campaign by
the books
Charlestown bindery
offers plenty of space
for collaboration at
Warren headquarters
JonChesto
CHESTO MEANS BUSINESSIn the Great Casino Race, one part
of the state was left behind: Southeast-
ern Massachusetts.
That might be about to change. A
Quincy developer is promoting an am-
bitious plan for Wareham to build a
new horse track along with a hotel and
entertainment complex with slot ma-
chines.
Tom O’Connell, a top executive at
Marina Bay and the Granite Links golf
club in Quincy, will host dual press
conferences to unveil his concept on
Tuesday, at Granite Links in the morn-
ing and then in Wareham in the after-
noon. The project has been rumored
for weeks, as O’Connell quietly worked
behind the scenes to build support.
Many of the details for Wareham
Park remain unclear. But one source
familiar with O’Connell’s plans says
the Notos Group, the firm created for
this development, would invest $
million in the project, at a 275-acre
parcel on Glen Charlie Road just north
of Route 25.
Why is it ambitious? First off, we’re
talking about a brand new racetrack, a
rarity. It’s been a long-waning indus-
try. Thoroughbred racing ended in
Massachusetts at Suffolk Downs this
summer. However, the track’s former
operators are trying to revive thor-
oughbred racing on the other side of
the state, at the Great Barrington Fair-
grounds.
Then there’s all the competition.
Yes, Southeastern Massachusetts,
dubbed “Region C,” still doesn’t have a
casino. The Mashpee Wampanoag
tribe has been stymied so far in an ef-
fort to build in Taunton, and the
Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe is duking
it out with town officials over a project
on Martha’s Vineyard. But Twin River
opened up a casino last year, just over
CHESTO,PageCWareham
track,casino
planoffered
INSIDE
BOLD TYPESJeff Carlson is leading RCN’s
expansion into new Greater
Boston communities CBy Tim Logan
GLOBE STAFF
In a sign of how far Boston schools
will go to add student housing these
days, Suffolk University appears
poised to buy a well-known downtown
hotel and convert it into a dormitory.
Suffolk has an agreement to buy the
Ames Hotel on Court Street, near City
Hall, for use as a residence hall, a top
university official confirmed Monday.
The 114-room boutique hotel, which
opened in 2010 in the historic Ames
Building, appears set to close early this
fall. Suffolk aims to have students liv-
ing there by the fall of 2020.
“We are definitely interested in that
site,” said John Nucci, Suffolk’s senior
vice president for external affairs. “It
would be an ideal location for student
housing, and our students will move
out of private apartments and into a
safe and supervised setting.”
A sale has not yet closed, and finan-
cial terms were not made available,
but people familiar with the deal said
Suffolk has the property under con-
tract at a price of $60 million to $
million. That’s significantly more than
the $53 million the current owner, the
Texas investment firm Invesco, paid
for the hotel in 2015, but far less than
it would be likely to cost Suffolk to
build a comparably sized dorm down-
town.
WhenInvescoputtheAmesupforsaleearlierthisyear,otherhotelopera-
tors made strong bids for it, one per-
son familiar with the matter said, but
Suffolk’s offer was the most attractive.
The fact that a mid-size university
might outspend experienced hotel
companies for a boutique hotel steps
from the Freedom Trail speaks to how
precious student housing is for some
schools, said Sebastian Colella, vice
president at Pinnacle Advisory Group,
a hotel consulting firm in Boston.
“That is surprising to me. It’s really
in a fantastic location,” Colella said.
“But these are the types of things uni-
versities are looking at now.”
Average room rates and occupancy
AMES,PageCAmes Hotel poised to be a dorm
Suffolk
University
outbids
lodging
companies
for the
boutique
property
PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFFThe 114-room
Ames Hotel,
which opened
nine years ago,
occupies a
prime location
on Court Street
near Boston
City Hall.“The test of a first-rate intelligence
is the ability to hold two opposed ideas
in the mind at the same time, and still
retain the ability to function.” So wrote
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“This philosophy fitted on to my
early adult life,” he added, “when I saw
the improbable, the implausible, often
the ‘impossible,’ come true.”
It also fits on President Trump,
though, for the moment, let’s limit the
“first-rate” label to his political in-
stincts.
How else to explain a pair of Trumptweets on Monday that declared “Our
Economy is very strong”andcalled on
the Federal Reserve to cut interest
rates by a full percentage point.
A reduction that drastic would be
warranted only if the economy were
collapsing, as it was at the end of- With the country in the full
throes of the financial crisis in Decem-
ber of that year, the Fed slashed rates
from 1 percent to a range of 0 to 0.
percent.
With a growth rate this year of
about 2 percent, the economy isn’t
“very strong,” but it remains in good
shape. So good that many economists
— and two voting members of the poli-
cy-setting Federal Open Market Com-
mittee — believe that the Fed’s quar-
ter-point rate cut last month was un-
necessary.
Fed chairman Jerome Powell justi-
fied the move as a kind of insurance
policy against the impact on the
United States of slowdowns in China
and Europe, and the president’s tariff-
happy trade strategy.
EDELMAN,PageCDonaldTrumpandtheeconomicplotagainstAmerica
Larry Edelman