Eastat Realty Capital has proposed a 24-story office building for a parking lot behind the Jacob Wirth Restaurant in Boston’s Theater District.

The developer of a $140 million office tower in Boston’s Theater District says his plan will succeed where a previous mixed-use proposal for the site failed.

“We think we have the right use and this is the right time,” said Eamon O’Marah, managing partner of Eastat Realty Capital. “There’s an abundance of residential, hotel, institutional and cultural uses in the Theater District, but what’s really lacking is Class A office and that’s what we bring.”

Last week, Banker & Tradesman was the first to report that the Boston-based company filed plans with the Boston Redevelopment Authority for 45 Stuart, a 24-story office building on a 26,000-square-foot parking lot behind the Jacob Wirth Restaurant at 31-45 Stuart St. If approved, the plan would include 247,725 square feet of office space on floors 6 through 24. The proposal also offers 1,845 square feet of retail, a two-story winter garden with a café on the ground floor and mezzanine level and a 174-space garage.

The project comes more than one year after Boston-based Weston Assoc. abandoned plans for a mixed-use development at the location due to “market conditions.” Weston had signaled its intention to build a 28-story building with 112 hotel rooms on the first six floors, 181 luxury condominiums on the upper levels and 219 underground parking spaces.

But the plan drew strong criticism from two neighborhoods that border the Theater District. The Chinese Progressive Association opposed the project, noting that the tower’s proposed height was nearly twice the legal limit. The Bay Village Neighborhood Association complained that the project was another example of “piecemeal development” that provided little pedestrian-friendly activity on La Grange or Stuart streets.

The Big Show

Eastat’s O’Marah is bullish on the gritty Theater District, where a W Hotel is under construction at Tremont and Stuart streets.

“We think it’s a great location for office and fits nicely without disrupting what’s happening in the area,” he said. “This new use of the site is more appropriate than the previous plan.”

William P. Barrack, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, a global real estate services firm with offices in Boston, said the tower would be a niche building that could bring demand from Tufts Medical Center and the other institutional tenants in the area.

“It’s a good location and I could see it working,” he said.

While O’Mara insists the adjacent neighborhoods are supportive of the plan, activists in Chinatown and the Bay Village have already lined up against it.

“Our objection about the massing is not addressed by a reduction of four stories,” said Mark Slater, vice president of the Bay Village Neighborhood Association. “Having four fewer floors is not a significant difference.”