Though the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a $440 million project in the Kenmore Square area in 2009, a recent lawsuit over parking spaces has prevented construction from actually beginning.
The project, titled the Fenway Center, is the brainchild of Newton developer John Rosenthal from the Meredith Management Corporation.
Rosenthal and his team plan to construct 335 residential units, thousands of square feet of office, parking and retail space and more than 30,000 square feet of green space, as well as updating the Yawkey Way T stop to bridge the Massachusetts Turnpike behind Brookline Avenue.
Construction for the Yawkey Way Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority station has begun, as evidence by the plywood walls erected around the station. A sign posted at the Brookline Avenue entrance deems the site “Under Construction,” and says the station will “be completed in Spring 2012.”
However, the second stages of the Fenway Center development—construction of the Brookline Garage, Beacon Garage and two of the main buildings, as outlined in a Meredith Management project program timeline from 2009 — have not begun, despite their late 2010 start date.
The hold-up is due to a lawsuit filed by CommonWealth REIT, which owns a building near the proposed Fenway Center build site. The project might cost CommonWealth REIT “four to a dozen parking spots,” according to The Boston Globe.
A deal between Meredith and CommonWealth REIT fell through, and the parking space impasse resulted in a lawsuit, according to The Boston Globe, temporarily blocking the Fenway Center project.
A Boston Redevelopment Authority employee, speaking to The Daily Free Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation, described the lawsuit blocking the project as “frustrating.”
Joe D’Angelo, manager of the Fenway landmark Cask ‘n Flagon, said he is hopeful that the Fenway Center would bring customers to the neighborhood even when there is not a Red Sox game.
“The apartments being built there will really help us out a lot, especially in the off-season,” he said. “Even days the Sox aren’t playing, having a new development like that will definitely bring a lot more traffic to the area.”
A development like Fenway Center could help revive the neighborhood, he said.
“A lot of people are going down to the Seaport District because of the new buildings right now,” D’Angelo said, “so I think something like this will help bring people back.”
Boston Redevelopment Authority spokesperson Susan Elsbree said she looks forward to the project coming to fruition, despite the current impasse.
“We hope the issue is resolved soon so that the Fenway Center project can move forward,” she said. “It will be a terrific addition to the neighborhood.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
