Northern Ireland and the city of Derry in particular lost a loyal friend with the unexpected passing of Stephen Coyle at his home outside Washington, DC.
Appointed head of the Boston Redevelopment Authority by Mayor Ray Flynn, and working closely with SDLP leader John Hume, Steve was a catalyst in the formation of Boston Ireland Ventures – the civic vehicle that spawned Derry Boston Ventures and its counterpart Galway Boston Ventures to help spur growth in the north west and west of Ireland in the 1980s.
Its mission was informed by his years of US experience in emphasising the connection between building a good local economy and peace and stability for all.
The optimism Steve exuded in the 40 years I knew him was driven by a determination to do a job and do it well. He expected no less from those he took with him like a Pied Piper on his mission to help uplift those who had been left behind in their own communities. But behind it all he personally knew what struggle was like.
With paternal roots in Derry and maternal ties to Galway, his own journey saw him travel from poverty as one of 14 children navigating life in public housing between South Boston and Waltham, Massachusetts, with some of his siblings forced to live apart from each other. There was always a direct link between Steve Coyle the visionary and the man who never forgot where he came from.
He would show a special talent for creating affordable housing using governmental power In Boston, working with Mr Flynn on ‘linked development’. This radical policy saw part of the profits from high-end downtown development projects going into a special fund to help create quality affordable housing in poorer neighborhoods.
Later, across the US as head of the American Federation of Labor’s Housing Investment Trust, Steve oversaw the investment of billions of dollars of union pension funds in hundreds of projects that created thousands of new construction jobs. He used his skills to persuade banks and other investors to join the labour movement in investing, especially in communities of colour that had long been “red-lined”.
As one colleague in government observed, Steve “had the ability to figure out how to marry affordable housing, the dignity of work, and urban revitalization across America”.
Steve, who died aged 78 on December 18 2023, was deeply committed to his wife Maria and their family. I was happy to join them when he returned to Derry in 2017 to receive an honorary doctorate from Ulster University in recognition of his role in bringing investment to the city.
A centre piece of the work of Derry Boston Ventures was the creation of the Foyleside Shopping Centre.
“We met with everybody,” Steve recalled. “We met with people who had strong links to the paramilitaries, we met with government heads and we came to a conclusion – you had to create a statement project. People had been doing investment on a small scale for some time, but it was not having an impact.
“I didn’t come at it thinking this will never work. It never entered my mind. Even with what was going on and people saying it will get blown up. We wanted to create an outbreak of ordinary economic life.”
In the end the £65m Foyleside “statement project” was opened in 1995 with a total economic impact of around 1,500 jobs. It was welcomed as the most important milestone in Derry’s retailing history and a catalyst for economic development in the north west.
But Steve Coyle’s role in promoting economic prosperity did not end there. He was also part of the team that worked with the Flax Trust in developing the Ulster Community Investment Trust as one of the most successful micro-lending programmes in Ireland and the UK.
In his closing remarks that day in 2017, Steve Coyle spoke of the distance Derry had travelled since he first visited in 1987. He spoke of how honoured he was “to have played some part in the city’s transformation”.