“Think big and challenge failure.”
(Photo by Heratch Ekmekjian)
Joe Fallon, CE ’77, had these words of counsel for Wentworth students last fall during a conversation before a standing-room-only audience in the Flanagan Campus Center. It’s advice Fallon himself has taken to heart on the path to becoming one of the most successful real-estate developers in Boston.
The protégé of Thomas J. Flatley, an enormously accomplished developer responsible for an empire of suburban-Boston buildings, Fallon is the visionary behind Fan Pier—one of the most transformative development projects in recent Boston history. Fallon made news recently when all 118 units in his luxury Fan Pier condo tower, Twenty Two Liberty, were purchased without the involvement of a brokerage firm. A second residential tower is now in development.
Recipe for Success
Fallon has come a long way since his days as a Wentworth student, when he played cards in the cafeteria before 8:00 a.m. classes to win lunch money. His success story, to hear him tell it, has a relatively simple recipe: Do what you love, and work very, very hard. The son of a contractor, Fallon grew up in Milton, Mass., a neighbor of the Flatley family (Thomas’s son Dan is a Wentworth trustee; grandson Thomas graduated from Wentworth in August). After graduating from Wentworth, Fallon approached Mr. Flatley (as Fallon still calls him) and asked for a job. “He said, ‘You can have a job, but you’re going to be a laborer at $2.50 an hour,’” Fallon remembers. “I took the job and I worked my way up, and I think he respected that.” Fallon built his own real-estate portfolio from scratch, beginning with the purchase of a
two-family home in Milton. He made a commitment to himself to purchase one new home every year. In 1991 he sold all his assets to leverage into a large deal, which collapsed when the recession hit. He lost nearly everything. “I had to start all over again with single family homes,” Fallon remembers. “I ended up taking some pretty big risks and put myself right on the edge. Many days I didn’t know where the money was going to come from, but I stayed with it.”
On The Waterfront
In 2005, Fallon made the biggest bet of his career, purchasing 21 acres at South Boston’s Fan Pier—an expanse of windswept parking lots next to the Moakley Courthouse, at the time—for $115 million. Today, Fan Pier, is home to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, law firm Fish & Richardson, and the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange; restaurants including Empire, Strega, and Babbo Pizzeria; residential tower Twenty Two Liberty; office building One Marina Park Drive; and Fan Pier Marina. According to the Boston Globe, the total cost of Fan Pier will be close to $4 billion by the time construction—which will include a second residential tower, Fifty Liberty; hotel space; a public green; and a second office building—is complete.
“All of us at Wentworth are very proud of Joe,” says President Zorica Pantic. “He has singlehandedly changed the face of Boston.” Fallon did not pull punches during his appearance at Wentworth, answering student questions with candor and bluntness. When asked for a “best tip” for job-seeking graduates, he said, “Don’t go into any job interview thinking that they’re doing you a favor. Have a different attitude. Go in thinking that you’re going to provide a service that they need. Be aggressive and let them know that you can help them.” For Fallon and his team, a winning attitude is essential. He and his staff arrive every morning at 7:00 and work 12-hour days, so a positive team spirit is crucial. “We make sure everyone is loose and stays loose,” he says. “If everyone has the right attitude and knows how to have fun—but works hard—that’s one of the key ingredients for us.”
Kickstart for Innovation
In 2010, in an effort to jumpstart Boston’s innovation culture, Fallon donated 10,000 square feet of Fan Pier space for the creation of MassChallenge, which has become the world’s largest startup accelerator and competition. MassChallenge has since moved to an even larger space in Boston’s Design Center on Drydock Avenue. In 2013, Wentworth’s own Gentoo team, headed by Greg Affsa, BIND ’15, and Ben Nadeau, BELM ’13, were finalists in the event. “Entrepreneurship is great because it gives people who have the right attitude and have a great product the ability to move forward, and that’s what this platform does,” Fallon says. “It’s been a huge success.” As Fallon looks to the future, he is looking, increasingly, beyond Boston, with upcoming projects in New York, Washington, and Miami, among other cities. But his legacy in Boston, secure long ago, continues to build, day by day, on a pier filled with shimmering glass towers, the windswept parking lots a distant, nearly forgotten memory. –Caleb Cochran
