FALL RIVER The Massachusetts Department of Transportation opened three bids at noon Wednesday from companies competing to become the designated developer of about 20 acres along the waterfront and the Route 79 and Davol Street corridor in Fall River, and one of them comes from a local name.
Tony Cordeiro's company, Anthony Cordeiro Properties of Fall River, bid $10.34 million. Mark Development and Wood Partners, teamed up on a joint bid, offered $13.97 million. The Michaels Organization offered $15.2 million. The Fall River Reporter first reported the amounts.
The bids now go to MassDOT, which will review the proposal packages before selecting a designated developer. The agency announced the bidding on July 24, saying the site could hold more than 1,000 new homes, and Mayor Paul Coogan said then that the project could bring close to $1 billion in investment.
What the city envisions
A master plan commissioned by the Fall River Redevelopment Authority calls for about 1,480 rental units, 61,000 square feet of commercial space and 2,200 parking spaces on the land, and MassDOT will weigh how closely each bid matches it. The parcels sit next to the city's commuter rail station, which opened in 2025, on land freed by the Route 79 and Davol Street corridor project, which took the elevated highway down to a street-level boulevard.
The three bidders
Cordeiro Properties has developed residential and commercial properties in Fall River since 1994, including the co-redevelopment of what is now Commonwealth Landing on Davol Street, and it has three housing developments in progress on Bedford and Hartwell streets. Mark Development, with offices in New York and Boston, specializes in mixed-use and retail development. Wood Partners, based in Atlanta, says it has been involved in the development of more than 115,000 multifamily homes. The Michaels Organization, headquartered in Camden, N.J., is one of the country's largest private-sector owners of affordable housing.
What happens next
The project is solely under MassDOT's control. Coogan said he was notified Wednesday of who the bidders were. "We have three solid bidders with experience in both renovation and construction, so we'll see what DOT comes up with," he said. MassDOT gave no date for picking the developer.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
How we verified this
The bid amounts, the noon opening, the master plan figures and the mayor's quote come from the local news story of Oct. 21 linked in Sources, credited once in the body; the bid process and the site description come from MassDOT's July 24 announcement on mass.gov, and the Oct. 21 due date is confirmed by a Sept. 14 television report, also linked. The bid amounts were also posted publicly Wednesday by a local figure citing MassDOT, matching the figures we verified. We read all of them on Oct. 21. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Not heard: MassDOT, which the local story said did not answer its request; its press office line is on the July release.
Corrections
No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.
Sources (2)
- MassDOT Opens Bidding for Transformational Waterfront Development in Fall RiverMassachusetts Department of Transportation press release, July 24, 2026, on mass.gov. The roughly 20-acre waterfront site along the Route 79 and Davol Street corridor offered for mixed-use redevelopment; housing, jobs and economic growth. Read Oct. 21, 2026.
- Also reported by: Fall River Reporter, NBC 10 News.