Despite growing fears that the adult entertainment industry will continue to linger along Lower Washington Street in Boston’s emerging Midtown District, Charles E. Smith Residential Properties is pressing forward with a luxury apartment building in the heart of the notorious Combat Zone, company officials told Banker & Tradesman last week.
“We do have it under contract,” confirmed Smith principal Darrell South, whose firm would replace developer W. Kevin Fitzgerald’s planned office/hotel project with the residential tower. There would also be a substantial parking component built underneath the residential units, according to sources, although both South and Fitzgerald declined to discuss specifics of the plan.
Smith’s willingness to press forward represents a boost of confidence for the area, especially in light of concurrent efforts by a former strip club owner to reopen another adult venue across the street from the apartment site. Local businesses and civic leaders from the abutting Chinatown neighborhood want the Boston Licensing Board to reject the club’s application on technical grounds, but the zone’s designation as the city’s adult entertainment district is making it difficult to eradicate that use entirely in light of First Amendment protections.
“It’s not going to go away,” said one real estate broker who maintains that the public outcry over a Centerfolds strip club is helping to underscore that reality. In terms of fostering additional development activity in the emerging district, the broker added that the Centerfolds proposal “obviously isn’t going to help.”
“It might cause some to step back a little,” said the broker.
Establishment of the Combat Zone as the city’s adult entertainment area is a legacy left over from the Kevin White administration of the mid-1970s, with many since arguing that its location next to Chinatown was indicative of that neighborhood’s lack of political clout during the White era. And while subsequent administrations have been more supportive of Chinatown, observers say it would be difficult to eliminate the Combat Zone completely because it would open up other areas of the city to adult uses.
Calls to the Boston Redevelopment Authority to discuss the situation were not returned by B&T’s press deadline, but a coalition of area businesses and residents known as the Lower Washington Street Task Force is vigorously fighting the Centerfolds plan. Critics of the club say the city should deny the application for a variety of reasons, including a recently revealed felony conviction against one of the strip club’s partners. One task force member predicted that the group will sue the city if the license is approved.
Momentum Builds
Prior to the Centerfolds proposal, adult entertainment activity in the Zone had been on the decline for several years, with Fitzgerald himself shutting down several such operations and demolishing the buildings they had occupied. At present, for example, there is just one strip club remaining, the Glass Slipper, while adult bookshops and cinemas have almost completely been eradicated. The Registry of Motor Vehicles opened a retail operation in one of Fitzgerald’s properties, while several new restaurants have also become part of the bustling streetscape there.
One of Midtown’s biggest boosts came with the groundbreaking of Millennium Place, a $475 million mixed-use complex being constructed diagonally across the street from where Smith is targeting its building. Millennium Place will include a multiplex cinema, retail, luxury condominiums and a Ritz Carlton Hotel. That project did have an impact on Smith’s interest, said South, who added that, “With Millennium and the Ritz and everything else that is going on there, we think it’s a great area to be in.”
Although details of Smith’s proposal are still under wraps, one source said the development will exceed 300 units and will be targeted to upper-income tenants. It is unclear how involved Fitzgerald will remain in the project, with both sides keeping mum on that matter, but the source said it is unlikely that Smith would want a partner in the deal. “They usually like to do things by themselves,” said the source. Fitzgerald, whose primary business is parking lots, would probably be retained for that piece of the operation, the source speculated.
As for the Combat Zone, while some say the Centerfolds proposal is an unsettling distraction, others predicted the adult entertainment resurgence will have a minor impact at most from a development standpoint. Architect M. David Lee, whose offices are located in the Midtown area, said he believes the investment ongoing along lower Washington Street will help forestall future growth of adult uses.
“I think the magnitude of the development that is occurring down there will overwhelm [the presence of] one or two adult entertainment uses,” said Lee. “One little strip club is hardly going to turn the momentum of what is happening there around.”
At the same time, Lee said he believes the public outcry is healthy, given that it reflects the new political importance of Chinatown, adding that the spotlight will serve to keep strip club operators from getting out of control. “They know that the minute they get out of line, they will be shut down,” Lee said.
