Reshaping Urban Life

In the early 20th century, a bustling wharf district sat just across Fort Point Channel from Downtown Boston. Each day, dozens of fishing boats unloaded their catch, while sugar, molasses, and other commodities were stocked in massive warehouses; shops and restaurants catered to the revolving shifts of dockyard workers.

But by the 1990s this once-busy neighborhood had succumbed to industrial decline, leaving little more than a wasteland of windswept parking lots. Bostonians could be forgiven for thinking Mayor Tom Menino was being overly optimistic when, in 1997, he declared the city’s intention to redevelop the depressed waterfront into a hub for 21st century innovation.

“These 1,000 acres are among the most prized real estate in the East Coast,” the mayor insisted. “And we intend to put them to good use.”

More than a quarter century later, that vision has finally come true. Now popularly known as the Seaport District, the area hosts multiple Fortune 500 companies and more research lab space than anywhere else in the city. Glittering high-rise condominiums and apartment buildings house nearly 4,000 people, making the once desolate spot a trendy, 24-hour neighborhood. Destinations—including the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center—draw plenty of visitors, who stay to sample the hip nightlife or simply to take in views of the city skyline and Boston Harbor.

Prange has helped oversee a massive transformation of Boston’s built environment in a little more than a decade. She also has been part of a transformation within commercial real estate, as more and more women take on important roles in a business that is reshaping urban life and spurring economic growth and innovation throughout Greater Boston.

“I entered this industry 22 years ago,” says Maureen McCaffrey ’86, “and I was the only woman in my office. I was the only woman at all my project meetings. We were doing one-million-square-foot redevelopments, and all the architects, all the engineers, the entire project team for every single one of those buildings were men. At the time, I didn’t find it peculiar.”

McCaffrey made the jump to the owner’s side in 2002, and since then she has worked for MITIMCo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Investment Management Company), which stewards MIT’s endowment.

As a director on the real estate team, McCaffrey has helped redevelop another neighborhood—Kendall Square—from underutilized postindustrial low-rises and parking lots into a biotech mecca—“the most innovative square mile on earth,” according to Boston Consulting Group. It’s a role that has included everything from planning and development to tenant fit-ups for over 2 million square feet of life science labs, along with office, residential, and ground-floor retail and restaurants that make a neighborhood feel truly dynamic. (MITIMCo has another 3 million square feet of projects in the pipeline.)

Getting that official stamp of approval feels like a weight has been lifted, she says, but that doesn’t mean groundbreaking gets immediately scheduled. The project’s leaders still have to get it through underwriting, work out finances and timing, and line up tenants who will be ready and eager to occupy the new space.

“So when you finally stick a shovel in the ground and it starts coming to life, it’s really, really rewarding,” McCaffrey says. “When you get to the point where you can actually see the tenants’ spaces come to life, and you get to see how much enthusiasm they have for the place, and for this science that they’re going to advance—well, that’s probably the most compelling part of the experience.”

Another thing McCaffrey has learned over more than 30 years, first in heavy construction and then in commercial real estate, is that with so much at stake—and so many stakeholders—any organization that aims to shape the built environment benefits from having a diverse team.

“When you think about all of the aspects of design and how people interact with spaces, all of us come to the table with different experiences,” she says.

At a design meeting early in her career, McCaffrey recalls, she was once again the only woman in the room—and the only one to recognize a major problem with an isolated exterior space that would have made more vulnerable users feel unsafe.

“The first thing I observed was, ‘Wow, I wouldn’t want to have to walk by there at night by myself,’” she says. “It was just because of how the space was designed. And the male designer looked kind of horrified for a second, and then realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I understand what you’re saying.’”

“We needed someone who knew how to build things, and she’s doing an amazing job,” the engineer enthuses, explaining that McCaffrey’s experience at MIT gives her insights into developing WPI’s own built environment.

Nitsch and Prange go back even further: Nitsch mentored the younger woman when Prange was at WPI. On a campus that has always skewed male, Prange valued the connection to a successful female role model, and when she was considering a change of majors, it was Nitsch who encouraged her to stick with civil engineering, even though she was often the only woman in a class.

After graduation, Prange sought a job with Nitsch Engineering, where she worked on site design, site permitting, and stormwater master-planning for clients that included her current manager at WS Development—which eventually recruited Prange to join its own team. (“How cool… you’re going to be a client,” Nitsch remembers telling her, secretly glad she hadn’t lost the young star to a competitor.)

During her years with WS, Prange also has been an active CREW member, recognized with the group’s Member-to-Member Impact Award last year for leading a team that included 25 women working on WS’s mixed-use development at 111 Harbor Way.

“I kind of feel like a proud mama!” Nitsch says. “I’ve enjoyed watching her take such a leadership role in the Seaport for WS. She and Maureen bring different experiences to the plate, but they’re the real deal. They have exactly what commercial real estate needs. They both know they have to continue to learn. They’re responsible, and they’re smart, and I think they’re both terrific.”

Nitsch felt especially proud in February, when Boston Real Estate Times named both Prange and McCaffrey to its list of Outstanding Women of Commercial Real Estate. It was an honor for the two WPI graduates, and another sign that women are making their mark on the industry, at all levels and in myriad roles.

“The project that I’m working on now, we have a woman structural engineer, a woman environmental engineer,” McCaffrey says. “Our architect lead is a woman. And on my last project, our contractor, project manager, structural engineer, and lead architect were women. I’m seeing more of it every day, and I’m living in more of it every day. And maybe it’s in part just by virtue of my presence as a woman in the room, it shows that there’s an opportunity for others.”

For someone whose work involves creating high-end spaces for high-tech companies, Prange’s own workplace is quite the opposite: At present, she works out of a two-level construction trailer outside WS’s latest project, One Boston Wharf. The 17-story building topped out last year, and this summer WS will complete construction on a second tower for Amazon, which will take over all 630,000 square feet of the building’s office space. And—in addition to hosting a major employer that’s a household name—the tower will have another claim to fame, as Boston’s largest net-zero carbon office building.

Prange spends every workday at the Seaport, but she still thrills to see the change. She also enjoys visiting Boston’s newest neighborhood with her two young daughters, who will grow up in a world where it’s taken for granted that women can build skyscrapers.

“My daughters like to tell people that I build buildings myself with my own two hands,” Prange says with a laugh. “They’re very proud of me. We’ll be driving down the Pike, and they will say, ‘Mommy, did you build that building?’ It’s funny, but I’m so glad to be able to expose them to this industry. And they’ve already started to ask questions that are urban-planning related. My older daughter is a typical Type A older child. I think she’s going to be an engineer!”