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Curtain call (continued)


SENSIBLE OR NOT, the political momentum is clearly behind Kensington Place. City officials have lauded the high-end tower for offering a windfall of low-income housing to Chinatown — even though only 61 of the 346 units will fit the "affordable" definition, while the remaining 285 units will fetch monthly rents of up to $3000. ("Affordable" is also broadly defined, since 31 of those 61 units will be slated for people earning 100 percent of the area’s median income — or $52,600 for a single person.) Still, Mayor Menino has hailed the development plan as "proactive ... in creating housing opportunities in the city of Boston."

Opponents have seized on such rhetoric and put forward an alternative for the site that would not only provide affordable housing, but also rehabilitate the Gaiety Theatre. Jeremy Liu, of the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), in Chinatown, says that his agency has designed a back-up proposal to show city officials "what it could look like if we wanted to do it all." The plan calls for housing that Liu describes as more suitable to the neighborhood: an 18-story building of 120 condominiums, 30 of which would be reserved for low-income residents earning half the area median income — or $25,000 for a single person. Better still, it entails a complete theater renovation. Last summer, the ACDC presented sketches to the BRA, to no avail. Says Liu, "The BRA has been stonewalling. We’ve heard nothing." (When asked by the Phoenix about the ACDC proposal, Jessica Shumaker, the agency’s spokesperson, declined to comment.)

Indeed, some city officials question the need for a restored Gaiety in the first place. Unlike many of his colleagues, Boston city councilor John Tobin, who heads the council’s committee on arts and humanities, remains "sensitive" to the Gaiety Friends’ cause — he penned an April 2003 letter to the BLC describing the Gaiety as "a historical landmark deserving of preservation." Nonetheless, he sympathizes with councilors who doubt the demand for a 1500-seat auditorium downtown. By his calculations, there are 15,000 seats in the Theater District, not to mention those in outlying venues like the Berklee Performance Center and Huntington Theatre. "This is not New York," Tobin says. "I’m not sure Boston can sustain a built-up theater district." If the city preserves the Gaiety, he asks, "Who is going to step up to the plate and provide the millions of dollars needed not only to renovate, but to book performances?"

The Gaiety’s defenders insist that such a demand exists. Mark Morgan, artistic director of the New England Light Opera, chuckles when he hears city officials questioning the need for a theater like the Gaiety. "The very fact that they’re saying there is no use for a theater of that size says to me that they haven’t done their homework," he says. After all, the downtown theaters do not offer something for everyone. Most are too big and too commercial-oriented to accommodate small performing-arts groups, much less the need for performance space among Chinatown’s residents. Or they present special acoustical challenges. Only two venues in Boston — Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall — provide an ideal environment for musical concerts. Yet these venues are often overbooked. Or they cost too much. Says Morgan, "The venue question is the major issue that lots of companies around here face. There is just not much available for us downtown."

Bradley Pennington, artistic director of Boston Bel Canto Opera, agrees: "We have too many performing organizations and too few venues." His company is constantly vying for safe and affordable space. But even accessible venues, such as Jordan Hall, can cost as much as $3200 a day to rent. So many nonprofit groups are forced to play in churches and university auditoriums instead. New England Light Opera, for example, books its performances at the Tsai Center, at Boston University, while the Boston Bel Canto Opera uses St. Anne’s Church, in the Back Bay. Concludes Pennington, "The simple fact of the matter is there are so many opera and musical groups that we still don’t have enough places to accommodate our needs."

Hence the appeal of a restored Gaiety Theatre. Brandeis’s Colfer, for one, who managed the Colonial Theatre from 1990 to 1995 and who oversaw its successful restoration, is convinced that the Gaiety could become economically viable just by booking "all the stuff that’s rejected" from Symphony and Jordan Halls. The two concert halls, he says, "turn down bookings consistently" — as many as half a year’s worth of performances. As Colfer and many others see it, a renovated Gaiety would make the perfect midsize music hall, one that could handle everything from chamber music to opera to jazz. More importantly, it would fill the need among local musical groups for additional venues.

Cullen, the vaudeville historian, echoes the sentiment: "The Gaiety would have a niche that no other theater in Boston has, yet the city has ignored this. Where is the municipal imagination?"

CITY OFFICIALS haven’t come across as merely indifferent to saving the Gaiety. If anything, they’ve appeared outright antagonistic. According to the two lawsuits filed to block Kensington Place, various municipal boards — from the BRA to the Boston Zoning Commission (BZC) to the city council — have actually violated the city’s zoning laws in their zeal to push the residential tower forward. The lawsuits accuse the BZC of exceeding its authority by granting Kensington Investment special Planned Development Area (PDA) zoning status, which would allow the developer to build a tower twice as high as the area’s 15-story height restriction. The lawsuits allege that the BZC and the City of Boston approved a PDA designation for Kensington Place that did not adhere "to the requirement that a PDA be at least one acre of land," and that did "not conform to the general plan for the City of Boston."

Under the city’s zoning laws, a development site must equal one acre in size to qualify as a PDA. The Kensington site measures less than half that. To meet the one-acre requirement, the investment company — with help from the BRA — has cobbled together what project opponents call a "desperate" and unprecedented scheme: the company has counted public sidewalks and streets in the one-acre footprint, as well as private properties that it does not own and that will not be developed. Moreover, it is relying on the BRA to use the agency’s controversial eminent-domain powers to force out two adjacent properties — including the Glass Slipper, one of two remaining strip clubs in the Combat Zone — and hand them over to Kensington. Although the developer does not have enough of its own land to qualify legally for the PDA, the BZC granted it this special status last December, setting in motion the two lawsuits. (A third lawsuit, filed by Glass Slipper owner Nick Romano, challenges the BRA’s ability to take his property by eminent domain.)

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Issue Date: October 15 - 21, 2004
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