"Worcester is on every cabinet secretary and commissioner's minds," says Murray. "Part of my job is to let them know where Central Massachusetts is, as well as other parts of the state.

"That's one of the reasons that I ran," he continues. "Worcester is the second largest city in New England. It's in Massachusetts' interest for Worcester, which drives Central Massachusetts' economy, to be growing and thriving. It should be getting the level of attention and investment that a city of this size warrants."

But while all three projects are unmistakably aided by Murray's presence in state government, that means they're now wed to the man who was once mayor of Worcester, and who many credit for using his bully pulpit as lieutenant governor to bring relevancy and money to a region that often plays second to Boston. The issue now is that CSX, Massport's control of Worcester Regional nor CitySquare are guaranteed to succeed.

In 2008 the Deval Patrick/Tim Murray administration announced an agreement between the state and the company that paved the way for the final version of the CSX deal, expected to pass a city council vote later this summer. This announcement highlighted the expanded commuter trains on the Worcester/Framingham line.

The hope is that with state's $50 million purchase of the railroad tracks owned by CSX that run between Boston and Worcester - and the control over train dispatching and scheduling that comes with them - Worcester's Union Station will be linked with better and faster service to Boston.

While CSX expansion has raised concerns about its impact on the center of Worcester, as well as the unaddressed environmental effects of increased train and truck traffic moving through the city, the general attitude of politicians and their constituents is one of support. With the final City Council vote on the project to be taken later this summer, the deal will be finalized: The state will spend an additional $25 million for bridge work and track repairs, and will double the amount of daily commuter trains between Worcester and Boston to more than 20. Worcester, aside from expanded service, gains increased money for greenscaping and mitigation. CSX is then able to expand its footprint in the city, while convincing the state to raise bridges over railroad tracks, allowing the company to ship twice the freight on one train.

In this area, most officials hail the positives of the deal. Worcester gains money, 380 construction jobs and 40 permanent employees once CSX moves in.

But what's been trumpeted more than the jobs and economic spin-off has been the commuter rail advances. 
Murray and state administrators want to see a stronger connection between Worcester and Boston, with new drop-off points. According to Murray, the additional train sets for the Worcester/Framingham commuter route are already in the process of acquisition, and there's hope that new routes will lead to North Station, the MIT campus and other Cambridge locations, linking up the two regions' life sciences and biotech firms.

"What this means for Worcester and the Central Massachusetts economy is incredibly significant," says Murray, who adds that this would provide opportunities to students, doctors, lab assistants and janitors. "If you can cross-pollinate where people live, work and receive an education, you get a desirable, attractive place to live."

"Other than South Station and North Station, this is going to be one of the busiest in New England, and that is a selling point for Worcester and Central Massachusetts," says Murray.

There could be some risk involved in relying on commuter rail to spark the economic development. Murray notes that "the Worcester line is one of the most utilized rail lines in the whole system." But there's another side to the story: Union Station only ranks 27th of 131 commuter rail stops in the number of inbound boardings on a typical weekday, according to MBTA numbers from February of 2008. The line has also had a bad reputation with timeliness.

"We've changed that in the last two years," Murray argues. "[Service has] significantly improved to 92, 93, 94 percent on time arrival and departure, which is good."

Also, with ownership of the tracks comes control over the train schedules and dispatching, which will now belong to the state rather than CSX, allowing the trains to run better and faster.

"We'll be able to modernize, put money into the infrastructure," he adds.

One snag, though, is that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the government entity charged with running the T and commuter lines, currently operates under tremendous debt - about $5.2 billion dollars, plus interest, according to a February 2009 Boston Globe article, which has been attributed to cost overruns from the Big Dig. Doubling the commuter trains between Worcester and Boston could certainly add to that debt, perhaps eventually leading to cuts in service or fare hikes. Both have recently been proposed or enacted in the Boston area.

Outside of Worcester people have picked up on these numbers, and the CSX deal has some concerned about finances. Compounding their issue with state debt is another recent $50 million purchase of more CSX owned tracks along the South Coast for the purposes of constructing a new commuter line which will connect Boston with Fall River, Taunton and New Bedford - an area of about 300,000 people currently without any sort of railway transportation.

Murray and Patrick's Republican opposition this fall have seized on the South Coast rail project as a talking point. Charlie Baker, who is running against Patrick for Governor, has publicly opposed any funding towards creating a new train line to the area, while Richard Tisei, the current state senate minority leader and Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, sees a poor MBTA record that suggests the organization can't handle any more financial strain.

"You don't have the resources to do it," says Tisei, noting that the proposed budget for the project is nearly $2 billion.

"From a macro level, I can tell you none of the T lines come close to being self-sufficient," he says. Hence, it's not responsible to talk

"about expansion when operating on a deficit."
Murray contends that the debt is being dealt with through reforms that have streamlined the administration's handling of transportation. He also points out that $275 million from the recent sales tax hike goes into paying off transportation debt annually.
Commuter rail issues don't just tie into CSX. Officials say that CitySquare's success relies in part on people riding trains to and from Worcester.

"Both of these things on their own merit are worth pursuing and getting done, but when you bring them together it creates a real exciting dynamic," offers Murray. "Without a doubt I think there's a real synergy between CitySquare and commuter rail, just given their geographical proximity and how they compliment each other, and what developers and companies want."

"The developers of CitySquare are ecstatic with the increase in commuter rail," says Jeffrey Mullan, CEO and secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the entity that as a result of recent reforms now oversees the MBTA
Michael O'Brien, Worcester's city manager, agrees that the success of CitySquare and the expansion of rail options are intertwined.

"It's the sum of the parts," he explains. Increased and improved train service makes living options in downtown Worcester "that much more viable," which in turn would make more people consider commuter rail when traveling to work.

Murray's stamp on CitySquare can't be denied, despite his insistence that he ran with an idea provided by someone else.

Murray credits Daniel Benoit, currently principal at Worcester's Benoit-Reardon Architects, as the person who first gave Worcester the idea for CitySquare. Benoit's architectural thesis focused on renovating and restoring Union Station into an intermodal transportation building -- another idea Murray helped turn into reality.

Benoit says his feelings at the time were "the only way to revive Worcester was to demolish, at least parts of, the mall."

After studying New Urbanism, an architectural design school of thought that promotes walkable cities, neighborhood planning and aims to reduce urban sprawl, and looking at successful mall conversions in Tennessee and California, Benoit went public with his idea of demolishing the failing Worcester Common Outlets and connecting downtown to Union Station.

His idea ran on the front page of the Telegram and Gazette in September of 1999.

"Some people thought it was visionary. Some thought it was crazy," Benoit acknowledges.

But the stir affected Murray's budding campaign for mayor in 2001. While knocking on doors, he learned that demolishing the mall was something many in Worcester wanted to see happen.

By August of 2003 Murray finally had a plan for how to make it happen, writing the white paper "A New Front: Clearing the Way for Worcester's Future," a policy and planning initiative that called for straightening out Front Street.

In the 19-page document includes this paragraph laying out the CitySquare vision: "There is a higher and better use for the 20 acres that the mall and garage encompasses in the heart of our city. The property's location next to Union Station, the public library, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, St. Vincent Hospital (Worcester Medical Center), the Centrum [now DCU Center] and the myriad of downtown legal, financial, cultural and commercial institutions make it ripe for mixed-use development with housing, office space, cafes, theaters, and restaurants."

But that was seven years ago -- long enough for people to become disgruntled with the project, many claiming that it would never happen even after CIGNA, the former mall owners, sold their property to Boston developer Berkeley Investments in 2004. Progress was finally made on the project this summer when Berkeley sold 11 acres of the plot to City Square II, a subsidiary of the Hanover Insurance Group.

So how much effect did all of Murray's hounding and pushing have on the project?

While Benoit says demolishing the mall would have happened eventually, it is evident that Murray's political muscle moved it forward.

"What Tim brought to it was he accelerated the process. Even though it's been 10 years now since I proposed it, in terms of an economic development project like this it's not a long time," he says.

"It would've been lightening speed had Berkeley done it when they bought the property, but the economy crapped out."

Murray says while lieutenant governor he kept a close eye on the project. "I probably talked to the city manager weekly about [CitySquare]," he says.

The project's scope has changed since 2003. What began as a $300 million investment has almost doubled to $563 million, which includes about $90 million in public money.

Tom Hoover, who was city manager at the time CIGNA put the mall up for sale, remembers "some discussions with Berkeley."

But it to say that the downtown pinned its hopes on the development wouldn't be quite right. The high expectations that CitySquare will "fix" downtown could just be a result of the public's long wait. When it was proposed, CitySquare had the benefit of being surrounded by other successful projects. Now it would stand alone in terms of major developments in the heart of Worcester.

"I don't recall it to be the one instrumental thing. There was a whole package of changes [then]," he says.

He suggests that with a stronger economy back then, and other developments in the area like Med City, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy's arrival and a revamped Union Station, the demolition of the mall didn't have the weight of the city on its shoulders. 
But Murray and O'Brien's CitySquare aims to remake downtown.

"In Boston, where's some of the highest priced real estate?" Murray asks. "It's around South Station. It's around North Station. You go around the state and see some of the exciting development projects often times around these kinds of transportation modes" like Union Station.

As for the airport's transfer to MassPort, Murray promoted that for nearly a decade. Just before Christmas 1999, the city council (of which Murray was a member) granted MassPort the authority to manage the Worcester Regional Airport, but finances stayed under the city's budget.

"We've been running the airport for the last ten years," explains MassPort CEO Tom Kinton. But he explains that there was always a lingering "thought or desire in peoples' minds" that MassPort would eventually take full control. According to him, Murray was a "huge proponent" for MassPort in 1999, and has since backed their bid to take over operations completely.

But how the airport plays into the city's development plans is still a little uncertain. "The airport piece, that's going to take a little bit longer," admits Murray.

"MassPort has demonstrated that it is a very capable business and marketing entity...and one of the things they believe right off the bat is that they can push corporate aviation because some communities around Lexington-Concord are not particularly excited about seeing additional planes coming in [to Hanscom Field]," he counters.

Kinton and Mullan offer that the biggest boon from MassPort's assumption of duties falls on city of Worcester taxpayers. Before, the airport was a drain on the bottom line. Now it's taken off the city's books and run by a quasi-government entity that Kinton explains is "self-sustaining" and "run like a business."

There's no dependency on the state legislature for funding, no line item for the organization in the Massachusetts budget, says Kinton.

Eventually, the goal would be to have more commercial operators flying out of Worcester Regional as well, with administrators pointing to the 1980s and 1990s, when upwards of six companies had flights in and out. Murray points out that back then 400,000 people used the airport, and got there just fine without an access road.

But again, what's celebrated locally isn't viewed similarly around the state. Tisei, who praises Republican governors William Weld and Paul Cellucci for their work on the 1999 MassPort agreement, says that in the past similar plans for Worcester Regional were "looked at as a bailout."

"A lot of people were concerned it was just burdening MassPort," he says. 

But these kinds of charges are nothing new for Murray, who's made it a point to make sure Boston doesn't overshadow Central Massachusetts.

Off-the-record consensus from others involved in state legislative affairs points out that it's a matter of perspective. As one source put it, "If you're looking for someone who's bringing home the bacon, Murray's done more than anyone since Cellucci," but they continue, he's not known for skimping when it comes to taxpayer dollars.

"I've heard that from time to time," Murray says on being known as too parochial, but he contends his efforts to keep Worcester on the mind of the government is in the entire state's interest.

"The fact of the matter is Worcester is the second largest city in New England," he says. "We have seen with the real estate market, with the population growth, that as people get exposed to Worcester and Central Massachusetts they realize that there's a value here in a lot of different ways."

He's also not shy in saying that, yes, these kinds of projects build the basis for reelection.

"Absolutely," he responds, "campaigns are about your record."

And the way City Manager O'Brien explains it, what others criticize about Murray we appreciate him for.

"There's absolutely no question that Lieutenant Governor Murray, with Governor Patrick and Secretary Mullan have Worcester on the map," he says. "It's a pleasant change to have us squarely on the map as it pertains to the future of the commonwealth."

The big three projects have all met significant milestones conveniently before the November election, and to cement their status even further, more news is expected to surface in the coming months, including hints of more airline announcements and the planned demolition of the mall sometime towards the end of the summer.

Let's say these projects don't bring the change to Worcester we've heard they will. There's no spin off from CitySquare, morning commuter rail cars continue to ship riders only inbound and Worcester Regional never locks down another airline. Sure, Murray's legacy may be attached to the projects, but local-level politicians would probably take more of the heat.

Yet flash forward ten years from now. If commercial airlines are flying overhead, packed express trains run between Worcester and Boston and young professionals fill up the residential zones of CitySquare because they work within walking distance - no one will care about the T's operating deficit, or that it took six years to demolish the Common Outlets. All they will know is that Tim Murray brought these projects to Worcester, and that will be enough to reelect him, and reelect him, and reelect him.