Inspector General issues guidance to MassDOT as it prepares long-term agreement on controversy-laden service plaza plan

Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro recently issued a letter to MassDOT to provide guidance and recommendations to the department as they prepare to enter a long-term lease agreement with Applegreen, an Irish company that operates over 100 service plazas in the United States. The letter comes amid months of controversy following the award of a contract to renovate and rebuild 18 Massachusetts highway service plazas.

On June 18, the MassDOT Board of Directors voted to award the 35-year contract to Applegreen over Global Partners, a Fortune 500 company headquartered on South Street in Waltham.

Since then, Global Partners has pushed back publicly on the decision, citing concerns with Applegreen’s proposal and lack of transparency from MassDOT around the procurement process. Global submitted the ethics complaint, filed a lawsuit against MassDOT for violating public records law, and filed an emergency injunction motion against the department. Despite these efforts, Applegreen and MassDOT have continued to move forward.

“It’s a bit mystifying to me how Global could ask MassDOT for a review of the decision and spoke about inexplicable scoring and irregularities,” said Applegreen CEO Bob Etchingham. “There’s nothing inexplicable about it. At some point, we’ve got to move on from this stage, but Global doesn’t seem to be able to bring themselves to accept that the bid is over, that they’ve lost.”

According to a MassDOT source, the department and Applegreen entered a “transition agreement” effective June 25. Since then, Applegreen has worked to prepare a master plan detailing the renovation and rebuilding process.

“We are grateful to the Office of the Inspector General for its review. These findings reinforce that MassDOT ran a competitive bid process and chose the company that provided the best value and would renovate all service plazas on the fastest timeline,” said a MassDOT spokesperson.

In the last two months, Global Partners had submitted seven public records requests to MassDOT “aimed at obtaining clarity regarding its decision.” Global has maintained that their bid was financially superior and provided $900 million more in guaranteed rent, and that Scott Bosworth, a MassDOT official, had both conflict of interests and improper influence over the procurement process.

Applegreen and its majority owner Blackstone have continuously refuted these claims. Etchingham says the $900 million figure presented by Global “is just not true.”

“You need to look at the total outlay that each party is contributing,” Etchingham said. “When you do that, it’s not $900 million.”

MassDOT also issued a 24-page debrief on both Global and Applegreen’s proposals for the highway service plaza renovations, as well as the scorecards completed by the evaluation committee. In the debrief, members of the selection committee deemed Global’s proposal “uninspiring” and a “’status quo’ strategy with no meaningful innovation or modernization.” In comparing the scorecards, Applegreen’s bid scored higher than Global Partners, even with Bosworth’s score removed.

When asked to respond to the Inspector General’s letter and the MassDOT documents, Global Partners informed The Waltham Times that they had not received the letter and asked for a copy. Upon review, Sean Geary, Global’s Chief Legal Officer, doubled down on the company’s previous claims.

“The letter contains no factual support for that [no findings] conclusion, and it provides no insight into the IG’s

reasoning,” said Geary. “The people of Massachusetts deserve a transparent process that safeguards public trust.”

Additionally, Geary and Global reiterated concerns about Bosworth’s potential conflicts of interest.  

“[The letter] did not address Selection Committee chair Scott Bosworth’s undisclosed ties to Suffolk Construction, Applegreen’s named general contractor,” said Geary.

Meanwhile, Paula Chihart, a Blackstone spokesperson, has refuted assertions in the complaint that Bosworth “engaged in discussions regarding employment opportunities with Blackstone Infrastructure Partners.”

“There is no truth to the allegations,” Chirhart said. “There were no discussions about potential employment with Blackstone, any of its funds or its portfolio companies with any MassDOT official at any point.”

Applegreen has continued to work in preparation to take over the lease of the 18 Massachusetts service plazas on January 1.

“We’re trying hard not to be distracted by all the noise,” said Etchingham. “We have a team of more than 100 people working on this project.”

The deadline for Applegreen to sign the lease and concessions agreement with MassDOT is November 3. Etchingham says he hopes Applegreen will finish and sign well in advance of that date.

When Applegreen takes control of the service plazas, they plan to redevelop six per year until completion in 2028.

UPDATED Sept. 6, 10:48 a.m. The Waltham Times has updated this article to amend its description of the Inspector General’s letter. The letter was not in response to Global Partners’ ethics complaint, as was previously stated. We have made the following corrections: The first two paragraphs corrected the purpose of the letter. Paragraph three added “despite these efforts, Applegreen and MassDOT have continued to move forward.” Pargraphs five and six were added to include background and a quote from MassDOT. The sentence following Geary’s first quote changed from “Geary and Global also believe that the IG did not sufficiently respond to conflict of interest concerns surrounding Bosworth” to “additionally, Geary and Global reiterated concerns about Bosworth’s potential conflict of interest.” The second to last paragraph corrected “lease agreements” to “lease and concessions agreement.”