On October 3rd at the Fairmont Copley, Lisa Wieland, Massport’s new CEO spoke to an engaged audience to hear about her role and upcoming initiatives. It ended with a fireside chat with CREW Boston President, Jill Sharif.
As Lisa stepped into her role this past August, her goals are to enhance the customer experience, maintain strong business relationships and optimize best practices for the organization.
The following were the main topics of conversation:
Logan Airport
Ground transportation is a problem at Logan Airport and to help alleviate the congestion and improve the connectivity, there will be new parking facilities and an overhaul of consolidating the process of ride-sharing at the terminals. Water transportation through water taxis and water ferries are being embraced and expanded. As they tackle potential initiatives, they need to be the right business model and be supported by ridership. Massport has been working on a resiliency plan for five years that will get Logan Airport through 2030.
Port of Boston
The Port of Boston has an $8.2 Billion economic impact and supports 66,000 jobs. 2,500 New England businesses use the Port of Boston. The port needs to be updated to stay relevant and competitive with other ports throughout the US and East Coast. The Port of Boston needs to handle larger vessels. To sustain with the competition, this includes modernizing the terminal, harbor dredging to accommodate larger ships and the creation of a freight corridor for ground traffic.
Diversity and Inclusion
Massport incorporates diversity and inclusion in their real estate developments and this policy began with the bid on a parcel of land across from the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center that was won by Omni Hotels.
We would like to thank Lisa Wieland for her time and the opportunity to be one of the first local commercial real estate organizations to hear from the new Massport CEO.
