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Curtain call (continued)


"This project is totally illegal," charges Lowe, of the CPA. Lowe finds it "ludicrous" that the BRA would let a developer circumvent the city’s zoning laws by allowing it to include city streets and other people’s private properties in a PDA plan. But then, she says, "So few officials found it ludicrous. So we sued." She adds, "This entire process has been fraught with corruption and city complicity." City Councilor Arroyo, another plaintiff, sounds a similar note. When city officials granted Kensington a PDA, he says, "they overlooked their own rules."

In its haste to grant the PDA, the Menino administration also overlooked how those rules apply to the Gaiety Theatre. Because the theater sits in the Midtown Cultural District, its redevelopment is governed by a clause in the Boston Zoning Code known as Article 38, Section 21. This provision aims to implement the 1989 Midtown Cultural District Plan, whose goal is "to revitalize Midtown" as a regional center for the arts "by rehabilitating historic theaters." It expressly forbids the demolition of any theater in the district, except those deemed unsafe. And it requires that city inspectors "not issue a change of use or occupancy permit for any theater within the Midtown Cultural District," except under certain circumstances. So regardless of any other illegalities associated with Kensington Place, as Shirley Kressel, a prominent neighborhood activist and a plaintiff in one of the pending suits, notes, "Its call to demolish the theater still violates the zoning code." In short, she says, "It’s illegal to tear down theaters in the Theater District."

No one from Kensington Investment would comment for this article. But the company has acknowledged the binding nature of Article 38 in its own documentation. As part of its application for PDA status — an application approved by the BRA — it states, "Article 38 provides that the Project is subject to [certain] use restrictions." It then goes on to cite the fact that Section 21 "contains certain requirements applicable to a change in the use or occupancy of a Theater."

Nonetheless, Kensington has tried to get around this clause. Kiefer, the company’s attorney, has asserted that the provision does not apply to the Gaiety building because it is no longer a theater. Last April, he penned a letter to William Good, acting commissioner of the city’s Inspectional Services Department (ISD), which enforces the Boston Zoning Code. In the April 30 letter, Kiefer argues that the Gaiety does not meet the code’s definition of a theater because it has not been used in nearly two decades. Moreover, he claims that the "legal occupancy" of the Gaiety was changed in 1988 from a "theater" to "food storage, stores, offices, restaurant, bookstore." Since the Gaiety is "not now legally occupied as a theater," he concludes, "the building is not subject to the requirement of Article 38."

This contradicts city records of the Gaiety building, however. A search of the ISD permits on file for 659 Washington Street yields one document, dating to 1993, not 1988. The permit lists such legal uses of the building as "two stores and one restaurant." One of the uses remains "the theater section."

All of which raises the question: why do city officials keep backing this project? Why is the Menino administration breaking existing regulations simply to build housing for the super-rich? Why is it abandoning a planning vision to accomplish something that so many varied interests oppose?

Such questions are valid. After all, Kensington Investment — and its long-time principal, Lewis — has kept a low-profile in real-estate development and investment. Lewis has garnered a reputation as one of the city’s most successful businessmen. As chairman of Grand Circle, in Boston, he heads the nation’s largest marketer of senior-citizen group tours of such far-flung places as Europe, Africa, and the Far East. A philanthropist, Lewis also operates the Grand Circle Foundation, which takes its name from his travel company and which donates an average of $2 million every year.

On the political front, though, Lewis is a small-time donor. Over the past five years, he has contributed just $1000 to the Menino campaign — $500 at a time, in 2002 and 2000. (By comparison, his attorney, Kiefer, has given $1250 to the Menino campaign while his partner, Cole, has donated $400.) Aside from Kensington Place, the only other development project that bears the Kensington name is Exeter Towers, a 96-unit Back Bay apartment building.

So why the special treatment from the city? Those who know the area surrounding the Gaiety suspect that something else is at work here — the politics of the Combat Zone. Kensington’s high-rise tower has major implications for the city’s only area zoned for adult-entertainment uses. Currently, the Glass Slipper stands on the edge of the proposed building. But if BRA officials get their way, they will, through eminent domain, hand over the 19-year-old nude-dancing venue to Kensington, which will tear it down. Displacement of the Glass Slipper would effectively cap years of efforts by the Menino administration to shut down the city’s remaining adult-entertainment establishments and redevelop the once-seedy lower Washington Street.

Lewis is not an insignificant landlord in the Combat Zone. In fact, he owns five other properties near the Gaiety Theatre — four on lower Washington, and one on LaGrange. (He rents one parcel to an adult bookstore called the Exotic Entertainment Center, located at 695 Washington Street.) Lewis, it seems, has aggregated enough properties in the Combat Zone to gain an advantage in negotiations. One observer who has followed the area’s development notes that landlords there have a right, under the city’s zoning laws, to rent properties for adult entertainment. Yet the Menino administration has long vowed to rid Boston of these establishments. "What would you as a property owner feel you had the power to say to the city?" asks the observer, who answers: " ‘This is the only place where adult-entertainment venues can locate. So if you want to stamp them out, talk to me.’ "

Another area observer puts it more bluntly: "The renovated theater is a casualty of wanting to get rid of the Glass Slipper. That’s what city officials want."

It’s difficult to say if such dynamics have come into play, of course, since no one would comment for this article.

page 5  page 6 

Issue Date: October 15 - 21, 2004
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