Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds, said it will work with HYM Investment Group, LLC, of Boston and Atlas Capital Group in New York to develop the 44-acre site, a former Pan Am rail yard across the Charles River from Massachusetts General Hospital, a few blocks from Kendall Square.

Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds — a joint venture between Canyon Capital Realty Advisors and a subsidy of Magic John Enterprises — was created in 2001 to redevelop real estate in densely populated urban areas.

“We are thrilled to be back in the Boston area, and to breathe new life into a large, strategically located piece of land that has been under-utilized for too long,” said Canyon Managing Partner Bobby Turner. He said the project “has the potential to create a new focal point for the neighborhood and generate thousands of construction and permanent jobs for local residents.”

Work on NorthPoint came to a halt in 2005 amid financial problems. It was originally supposed to feature about 2,700 residential units, more than 2 million feet of commercial and office space, and 150,000 square feet for retail businesses.

In a decision today, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court backed the Legislature’s 2007 tidelands bill to issue exemptions from certain waterfront licensing regulations.

The state Department of Environmental Protection had exempted most filled tidelands from such statutes, but the SJC’s 2007 ruling found that only the Legislature could issue such exemptions. A group of Cambridge residents had challenged the validity of the 2007 tidelands bill. Today’s SJC decision puts that challenge to rest.

“Although we are not unsympathetic to the plaintiff’s view, we ultimately agree with the defendants that the act does not extinguish and relinquish public trust rights in landlocked tidelands,” the decision reads.

Source: Banker and Trademan

The new suit was brought by the same Cambridge residents who successfully challenged NorthPoint‘s state environmental exemptions two years ago.

That SJC decision didn’t just derail the then-struggling 5 million-square-foot construction project. It also threw into question the titles on several million square feet of building space in Boston and Cambridge, setting off panic in the state’s development community and requiring a special corrective law from Beacon Hill.

Now, NorthPoint‘s neighbors are heading back to court. They’re arguing that the special law the legislature passed in response to their first lawsuit didn’t specifically clear the clouds surrounding NorthPoint. In fact, they say, a full 13 acres of the 40-acre site was improperly permitted and later put on the market.

Now the SJC will rule on whether the state, not Pan Am Railways, holds title to those 13 acres, which cut through the middle of the project site.

“The railroad had a license to fill in” 13 acres of disputed tidal lands, said Steve Kaiser, one of the plaintiffs. “But they had no right to use that land however they wanted, or to sell it. They don’t own it. They don’t have fee title to it. The license, from 1962, says they need a new license for a change of use.”

This week’s SJC ruling granted the plaintiffs direct appellate review, bypassing appeals courts and sending the case directly to the state’s highest court. The SJC clerk’s office said that oral arguments would be heard this fall, at the earliest.