4 replies to this topic

[tocoto]

At 300', this building will be a great improvement to the area.  I'll try to find a rendering.

Combat Zone project gets city's OK
12/18/2003

The Boston Zoning Commission gave its approval to a proposed high-end apartment tower in the Combat Zone. Known as the Residences at Kensington Place, it would replace the Glass Slipper strip club and the defunct Gaiety Theatre. Projects with a footprint of one acre or more can qualify for a special zoning status designed to accommodate higher-density development. Kensington sought this status, despite claims it did not meet the one-acre threshold. The City Council also approved a measure favorable to Kensington Place. One step that remains for Kensington's developer: getting state approval for a plan to take the Glass Slipper by eminent domain. (Chris Reidy)

[Scott]

If you walk down Washington Street through the Combat Zone, you'll still see a few hookers and some sleaze that spills crime into Chinatown. This project should be the final blow to the Combat Zone and its problems. That said, it's still too damn hard to build tall in a neighborhood that needs the units.

[bostoniensis]

There's a rendering and explanation of the Kensington project here:

http://www.architect...ingtonPlace.pdf

Looks pretty good IMO.

[atlrvr]

The above link it dead, but here is the current rendering on the architects site.

http://www.architect...eKensington.pdf

There were rumblings that this would actually start this year....we'll see.

None the less, the Combat Zone really is no more, though the area still has it share of drug dealers, mostly hanging out around the Ritz Towers on Boylston.  Apparantly there was a big sweep down there this past weekend, and they arrested about a dozen heroin and crack dealers.

[atlrvr]

There was a rather cynical article about this project in today's Herald.

Quote

The tower’s would-be developer defends the deal, blaming rising construction costs for the delay. The firm has already pumped “tens of millions” into the project, said James O’Brien, a top Kensington executive.

But O’Brien also could not give a timetable for when work might finally start.

Link to the article.

I wasn't here to see the Gaiety Theatre, so I don't know if a true treause was lost like the preservationist make it sound.  However, I do walk past the site farily regularly, and the permenant-seeming construction fencing isn't beneficial to an area to teeters between upscale and drug-zone.