Marriott Moxy Hotel | 240 Tremont Street (Parcel P-7A) | Theater District

[statler]

Yes, we speak of things that matter,

With words that must be said,

Can analysis be worthwhile?

Is theater really dead?

-The Dangling Conversation

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Clarification

I don't see the point in bringing back the Modern.

My understanding is that there isn't much to save inside the building, so what you're really doing here is reusing the shell of the old building and putting something new inside. The building was not orignally a theatre, by the way; that came decades after it went up.

From a booklet called "Boston Theatre District: A Walking Tour", published by the Boston Preservation Alliance in 1993:

In 1913 C.H. Blackall designed a long, narrow, 800-seat cinema which was inserted in the ground floor of the Dobson Building, a five-story Ruskinian Gothic, sandstone warehouse, designed by Levi Newcomb and Son in 1876. Blackall added an elegant but somewhat incongruous two-story, Florentine Renaissance, white marble fa?ade to the building.

He was aided in the theatre design by acoustician Wallace Sabine, a Harvard professor who first applied scientific principles to the study of sound and space. It was Sabine and Blackall's only collaboration.

 

[Mike]

Suffolk eyes Modern Theater overhaul
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Friday, August 10, 2007 - Updated: 06:14 AM EST


Suffolk University is poised to take on another major project in Downtown Crossing by bidding for the right to redevelop the historic Modern Theater.

John Nucci, Suffolk?s government affairs chief, said yesterday the university will submit a proposal to City Hall for revamping the long-shuttered, turn-of-the century Washington Street theater.

Suffolk?s interest in the Modern comes just weeks after the university wrapped up a deal to put a dorm next door at the corner of West and Washington streets. Suffolk will turn a building once slated for high-end condos into housing for 274 students.

With the Modern, Suffolk could come close to doubling its presence on Lower Washington Street, where the shops of Downtown Crossing give way to the city?s increasingly upscale Theater District.

Nucci said Suffolk is exploring a range of uses for the old theater?s first floor, from a theater or performance center to an art gallery. Floors above could provide dorm rooms for as many as 200 students.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority currently owns the theater, and is seeking bids by Aug. 30 for the redevelopment of the Modern.

The Suffolk proposal comes amid a major push by the university to house half its 4,600 students in dorms. That effort is seeing the university push out of its traditional Beacon Hill base.

?We are excited about the possibility of keeping the Modern Theater a place where cultural programming can continue,? Nucci said. ?We are continuing to move our center of gravity off of Beacon Hill and into the surrounding area.?

Suffolk?s proposal to redevelop the Modern Theater comes with the blessing of Downtown Crossing?s growing community of condo residents - a significant turnaround.

The university ran into vocal opposition from its new neighbors earlier this year when it first proposed converting the West Street building into a dorm. But the university, led by Nucci, managed to allay concerns about an influx of students.

For starters, the university has pledged to limit future expansion in the area of Downtown Crossing between Winter and Boylston streets to the West Street dorm and the Modern.

But Suffolk has also opened up its wallet, pledging $50,000 to pay for weekend patrols of the area by Boston Police. The university is also pitching in another $20,000 to Project Place to pay for street cleaning in the area.

?They certainly did add a number of community benefits,? said Jessica Shumaker, a BRA spokeswoman.

Neighborhood activists and condo associations have lined up with letters of support for Suffolk?s plans.

?From Suffolk?s perspective, going forward, it?s very important to have a good relationship with our neighbors,? Nucci said. ?We hope we will be doing further expansion and we want to establish a track record as being responsible, attentive neighbors.?


Link

 

[Ron Newman]

Wonder what will happen to Suffolk's existing C. Walsh theatre on Beacon Hill if they buy the Modern. Does Suffolk have a use for two theatres?

 

[kz1000ps]

Next Act Awaits the Wilbur Theatre

As owners put storied hall up for sale, redevelopment seems most likely option
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | August 16, 2007

If theater in Boston had a home, it was the Wilbur, on Tremont Street.

With no European pretensions or gaudy features, it was designed to make patrons feel comfortable, modeled after a stately residence on Beacon Hill and offering finnan haddie au gratin on the menu.

Now that home is for sale.

After 93 years of packed houses, laughter, and ovations -- with periods of neglect, flops, months of darkness, and stumbling attempts at cabaret or dinner theater mixed in -- the little Wilbur Theatre is again facing an uncertain future.

Robert S. Merowitz, managing partner of Tremont Entertainment Enterprises Inc., and his two partners are dropping the curtain on his company's two-decade ownership of the Wilbur. They will let someone else determine whether the midsize, 1,200-seat theater can survive in an era of on-demand cable TV, iPod videos, and live shows that are more popular with crowds of 300 than a thousand.

"After all these years, it's time to move on," said Merowitz, a developer who got into show business both to make money and to save a Theatre District treasure.

But small independent owners and producers are challenged today. "It's controlled by all the big guys; it really is," Merowitz said.

The Wilbur's landmark status, however, will protect it from being torn down or drastically altered.

Live Nation Inc. ended its lease on the Wilbur almost a year ago, and now a nightclub, on a month-to-month lease, remains the only life left in a building designed by the foremost theater architect of the time, Clarence H. Blackwall.

There is no asking price, but the real estate firm of Grubb & Ellis Co. has developed a marketing brochure -- it resembles a Playbill -- to present the property nationwide.

"The right buyer is one who will make use of the existing historical and architectural nature of the building," said Philip G. Giunta, senior vice president at Grubb & Ellis.

But the name of the play on the Playbill is "The Investment Opportunity," and clearly Merowitz is looking to cash in on the current smash-hit status of the real estate investment market. His company bought the Wilbur in 1988 for $3.1 million and tried to sell it in the mid-1990s for $3.5 million.

According to city officials, allowable uses include residential, office, retail-restaurant, hotel, and entertainment.

Merowitz said the owners have done well, but acknowledged there have been tough times. After Live Nation's lease expired last year, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" came in and finished the year. "Pretty much since then, it's been dark," Merowitz said.

But back in the day . . .

Built by the powerful Shubert brothers and named for their friend and manager, A.L. Wilbur, the theater was Boston's 10th when it opened in 1914 with Edward Sheldon's "Romance," starring Doris Keane. Mayor James Michael Curley and his family were in the audience.

It had the first lounge in any Boston venue, where patrons could have refreshments between acts, and later restaurants such as Rex, with "Joey and Maria's Comedy Wedding," and clubs, such as the current Aria, occupied the space.

The theater itself, in its prime, debuted shows headed for Broadway. Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" premiered at the Wilbur, and, according to news accounts, audiences walked out on an unknown Marlon Brando in Tennessee Williams's "Battle of Angels" in 1940 -- but came back to cheer him seven years later in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

They were all there: Lillian Gish, the Barrymores, Katharine Hepburn, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, Jason Robards, Alan Bates, and, more recently, Al Pacino in "American Buffalo" and Quentin Tarantino and Marisa Tomei in "Wait Until Dark."

But a news story in 1994, a tough year for the theater, noted that the "three-story jewel box of a house remains empty and lonely."

Catherine Peterson, executive director of ArtsBoston, a performing arts service group, said it's unlikely the Wilbur will continue as a theater. "It's a near-perfect playhouse for the spoken word, just a gem," she said. "But the days when plays toured the country with their original stars are gone."

So today's real-estate play may mean change -- development -- but that will take some creativity. The Wilbur was renovated in the late 1960s and in the 1980s, and declared a Boston landmark in 1987. A dozen years ago, the city's then-cultural commissioner said: "No one can change the outside of the Wilbur, the color of its paint, its interior, its lobby, the downstairs, or the hall itself."

Although the facade and parts of the interior are protected, the city has been flexible in recent years about changes made to accommodate new uses in historic buildings.

Since the successful shows of the 1970s such as "Hair," "Godspell," and "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" struck their sets for good, owners have tried dinner theater -- "Sheboppin" flopped -- and cabaret. They even wanted to bring in a swing orchestra, but local unions shut the place down with pickets.

Merowitz won the prestigious Elliot Norton Award, which recognizes achievement in Greater Boston's theater community, for saving the Wilbur, and Boston's theater neighborhood is now on the mend.

A W hotel is going up across the street, the nearby Courtyard Boston Tremont Hotel has been spruced up, and the old ticket-trailer lot on Stuart Street, next door to the Wilbur, is about to get a glitzy spire of condos wrapped in Times Square-grade neon.

"I would like to see it stay an entertainment use," Merowitz said. "Everyone always loved the Wilbur Theatre because it was such an intimate house."

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.
? Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

 

[czsz]

Another one bites the dust (probably).

Also in today's Globe, an article on how Boston actors are struggling to find work, and seem to be relying (at least the lucky ones are) on a Showtime series filming in Providence:

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2007/08/16/ri_becomes_the_scene_for_boston_based_actors/

 

[Ron Newman]

So at the same time as the neighboring lot is finally redeveloped, the Wilbur disappears? Something's wrong here.

Given the amount of effort the city has put into reclaiming the Opera House, Paramount, Modern, and Strand (in Dorchester), it would be a shame for this one to slip away.

 

[JimboJones]

Tut tut

Ron, you and I disagree on this. I think the city is wasting its money by getting involved with renovations to the Strand.

It's a money pit.

I pay my taxes so the city keeps the streets clean and safe, not to be a landlord.

 

[Mike]

this is a BRA press release from last month ... better late than never:



Theatre District Parcel Gets Go-Ahead for New Housing, Restaurant & Electronic Signage


The BRA Board approved the new development on Parcel P7-A at the corner of Tremont and Stuart Streets in the Theatre District. The $30 million project includes a 14-story mixed-use structure containing 72 residential units, restaurant space, and an electronic signage component. The BRA put out a request for proposals for this parcel in September 2004, seeking a new use that would enhance the Theatre District as a whole and improve the underutilized parcel, which was long home to a ticket booth. In August 2005, the BRA selected Amherst Media Investors, LLC to redevelop the site; and in January 2006, the BRA approved Amherst?s decision to partner with Abbott Real Estate Development to include a residential component as part of the project.

The project will feature an innovative and stimulating signage component that will create an iconic corner in the Theatre District. The centerpiece of the signage will be an electronic video board that will play full motion video, subject to obtaining applicable approvals, and can be used to provide news as well as arts and cultural information. In addition, there will be a collage of traditional fixed signage integrated with the video display, which will be viewable from both Tremont and Stuart Streets. The signage will mainly be affixed on floors two through four, extending out from the building utilizing various technology methods to allow for restaurant patrons and residents to still have access to sunlight and air.

The project?s residential component includes a mix of studio and one-bedroom units, including 9 affordable units. Additionally, the project features approximately 6,400 square feet of ground-floor restaurant space.

The development team consists of Amherst Media Investors, LLC and Abbott Real Estate Development as the co-developers; Sheskey Architects as the project architect; Shadrawy & Rabinovitz and Rubin and Rudman LLP as the attorneys; O?Neill and Associates as development consultant; and Daylor Consulting Group, Inc as permitting consultant.



Link

 

[Ron Newman]

What was historically on this site, before the trashy ticket trailer?

 

[czsz]

The centerpiece of the signage will be an electronic video board that will play full motion video, subject to obtaining applicable approvals

It would be nice to know how extensive these are and what the chances are they'll be granted.

 

[briv]

Im really happy to see this tiny parcel utilized this way, but I could seriously do without the tacky light show. I personally find Times Sq to be a dull and contemptible place. Boston would be wise to nix the idea of remolding our theater district in its image -- albeit timidly and miniature. Which actually makes it even worse.

Also, all that crap tacked onto this building simply clutters up its form, which I think could be quite striking.

 

[chris]

How are they fitting 72 units into that? Even as studios and 1 BRs, that's got to be a tight fit.

 

[JSic]

Nice. Between this and the hotel going up across the street, this intersection is gonna feel really different pretty soon.

 

[JSic]

Im really happy to see this tiny parcel utilized this way, but I could seriously do without the tacky light show.

I disagree; Boston needs more lights at night. So much of the city seems dead after dark.

 

[BostonObserver]

build over the Wilbur theater

Now that the Wilbur is for sale I expect this project will change to include the air rights above the Wilbur.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Man alive, that is ugly as sin. That has got to be the ugliest thing I have ever seen proposed. I work in Times Sq and boy if that gets built you guys are in for a shit storm. I can just hear the NIMBYs now.... and I'll probably be on their side.

 

[whighlander]

The future might be changebale building virtual skins

The kind of lighting technology that is available today is just the beginning of a revolution in interior and exterior lighting based on Light Emitting Diodes -- see the local company Color Kinetics that provides the lighting technology for the edges of the Cambridge Hyatt and the stage of Symphony Hall for POPS

But crystalline Semiconductor LEDs that everyone has seen {you typically are looking at a lump of plastic that surrounds the very small semiconductor chip} are just the beginning -- the oncoming technology is called Organic LEDs , OLEDS ? or just light emitting plastic. Since it consists of plastic ? it can be produced in potentially very big sheets. To make an illuminated sign you just screen print conductors onto the front and back of the plastic sheet -- in principle you can print illuminated signs just as we now have T Buses and Green Line Trolleys covered with ads

There are still some issues concerning the lifetime and brightness of certain colors ? blue and green are harder than red for some fundamental physics reasons ? but a lot of progress has been made and a number of pocket devices already use OLEDs

Later-on {5 years} we'll have fully addressable light emitting plastic sheets {you have to prints some transistors on the plastic as well as wires -- and that potentially means the Hancock could become a REALLY BIG TV SET

Just imagine the Advertising Potential of That One

Even beyond that -- we are getting close to video holographic displays {you need fast addressable arrays of laser diodes and a lot of computer power ? but that just means a few more years of technology evolving. To make a projected display that is viewable to a lot of people you just need a fog or something to illuminate that has some transparency. What that means is that in principle -- you could put a structure underground with a virtual tower projected into the space above the actual building -- and you could change the building with the seasons, holidays, etc.


Technology is an onrushing train -- Just hide and watch

Westy

 

[underground]

The building may be a little Vegas, but this corner could use a little Vegas. For better or for worse, it's the center of the Theatre District. Right now, it has a parking lot, a trailor, a 7-11, and a small pub. It doesn't exactly scream, "COME HERE FOR ENTERTAINMENT!" That building does.

 

[singbat]

The building may be a little Vegas, but this corner could use a little Vegas. For better or for worse, it's the center of the Theatre District. Right now, it has a parking lot, a trailor, a 7-11, and a small pub. It doesn't exactly scream, "COME HERE FOR ENTERTAINMENT!" That building does.

i like the design, for what that's worth. but the more I look at that image the more I start wanting more...