Over the past 25 years, his name has been synonymous with Boston’s infamous Combat Zone. Nowadays, however, W. Kevin Fitzgerald is trying to make the connection an antonym.

Branded a slum landlord and even a “pornography profiteer” by some, Fitzgerald is leading a charge to eliminate the vestiges of the once-bustling adult entertainment venue. Earlier this month, his firm unveiled a plan to demolish an X-rated bookstore on Washington Street and replace it with a 23-story office/hotel complex. While a partner is still being sought, Fitzgerald recently expressed optimism that his Liberty Center project will be in the ground by the end of the year.

Known primarily for operating parking lots, Fitzgerald insists that his role in the Combat Zone has been overstated. His family, after all, has owned property in the area since 1960, back when Scollay Square and the Back Bay’s Boylston Street dominated Boston’s adult market. Most agree that the real problems in the Combat Zone did not begin until the mid-1970s, when then-Mayor Kevin White designated that stretch of Washington Street as the sole adult entertainment location. The district held on since, Fitzgerald said, via a combination of First Amendment rulings, tepid investment interest, and a vacillating economic climate which had development marching on the neighborhood until the national recession stopped all activity in its tracks in the late 1980s.

“It wasn’t for a lack of effort that it didn’t happen sooner,” Fitzgerald said of the change, noting that he had previously tried to convert one adult establishment into both artist and congregate care housing without success. Political maneuvering was responsible for keeping some of the development on the sidelines, he said, adding there has also been a chicken-and-egg stalemate where the adult uses prevented the arrival of more acceptable alternatives.

Despite those obstacles, and after years of false starts, the Combat Zone is currently under siege. Only one strip club remains, while prostitution activity has also largely fled elsewhere. A driving force is the $475 million Millennium Place mixed-use complex being built diagonally across the street from Fitzgerald’s planned project. The venture includes office space, luxury condominiums and a new Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

“Millennium is a huge investment which has legitimized that location, especially with the addition of the Ritz Carlton,” agreed John Connolly, a development advisor under former Mayor Raymond Flynn and now a principal with Sawyer Enterprises. “One can expect dramatic changes down there.”

Connolly, whose own firm is proposing a 432-room hotel a few blocks from Liberty Center, also defended Fitzgerald’s reputation. The developer, whom Connolly worked with during his tenure at City Hall, “was always upfront and straightforward” in his dealings, Connolly said, and did repeatedly attempt to upgrade the area. Timing was the real enabler in the Zone’s resilience, he maintained.

“He was really stuck because of the economics,” Connolly said. “Now that the economics have changed, this is more the real Kevin Fitzgerald that you’re seeing.”

Indeed, many of the strip clubs and adult uses have closed because of Fitzgerald’s efforts. Among the controversial operations shuttered by his firm in recent years have been the Naked I Cabaret, the Pilgrim Theater and, last year, the Playland Cafe. In 1997, Fitzgerald convinced state officials to relocate the Registry of Motor Vehicles to his Liberty Tree Building, a five-story structure that had previously housed an adult video and bookstore.

Community Benefits
Fitzgerald acknowledges that the district has been diluted as much by the advent of the Internet and other sex-related options as anything, and noted that the vigilance of the abutting Chinatown – whose residents despise the Zone – has also helped advance its demise. At the same time, Fitzgerald stressed that he has always worked towards such an outcome, adding that, “I think the neighborhood recognizes what I’ve been able to accomplish.”

Fitzgerald is also pledging community benefits as part of Liberty Center, with plans to provide a senior citizen drop-in center and affordable offices – “Class A space at Class C prices” – to local professionals. The goal, he said, is to expand and solidify Chinatown rather than constrict the neighborhood.

Under his proposal, Fitzgerald would construct a tower on the corner of Washington and Essex streets. While rising 290 feet high, it would still be 100 feet smaller than Millennium Place. The current concept calls for 200,000 square feet of office space on the lower levels, a similar-sized hotel operation above, plus 395 parking spaces. The number of hotel rooms has not yet been determined, nor has the lobby configuraton. Bergmeyer Assoc. of Boston is architect for the project.

Unable financially to do the development on his own, Fitzgerald said he is negotiating with hotel operators, and expressed optimism that a viable partner will be selected over the near term.

“There are several companies we are talking with who have the funds available to participate in a project like this,” he said, estimating the total project cost in the $120 million range.

Had he been a few years earlier, such investment would have been plentiful, but there has been a cutback of interest in hotels amidst fears of overbuilding. Connolly, whose company hopes to have its Loew’s Hotel under construction in 2000, said the fiscal climate is cloudy at best.

“To build any ground-up hotel, there is very limited financing out there right now,” he said. That was one reason Sawyer hooked up with Loew’s early on, Connolly said, adding that the concerns of overbuilding should not be directed at Boston, where the city’s hospitality industry has been operating near capacity for several years. Even with such performance and a perceived need for upwards of 5,000 new rooms between now and 2005, Boston is being thrown into the national stereotype, he said.

“It’s a great time right now from the perspective of the market is strong, but financing is not readily available at good terms,” said Connolly, who nonetheless said he believes his company will get fiscal backing when it pursues it this summer.

In the meantime, Fitzgerald continues to seek his own financing and said he believes the presence of Millennium will ultimately generate interest. After 40 years of his family’s stewardship in the district, Fitzgerald said the Combat Zone does seem to have met its match.

“This is not the same street that it was,” he said. “You aren’t looking at adult entertainment marquees running all the way down to the [New England] Medical Center anymore … To me, it’s a vital neighborhood that is only going to improve.”