The restoration of the Hotel Alexandra, located at Washington Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston’s South End, is on hold again as the buyers scramble for financing.
The restoration of the run-down Hotel Alexandra, a once elegant landmark in Boston’s South End, met another roadblock last week as potential buyers failed to get financing for the $15 million project.
“We are extremely discouraged,” said Sheila Grove, executive director of Washington Gateway Main Street, a nonprofit revitalization organization that has lobbied for the building’s renovation. “I don’t understand why financing was a problem. It used to be hard to fund projects in this neighborhood, but that was a long time ago. I don’t know what went wrong.”
After more than a decade of broken promises to restore the vacant hotel, its owners, Macedonia Realty Trust and Peter Bakis, decided to sell the building earlier this year. Under the terms of the purchase-and-sale agreement, Gerard Kiley and Robert Rosati would purchase the property for an undisclosed price and undertake a major restoration.
The buyers received the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s approval to convert the building at 1759-1761 Washington St. and an adjacent 3-story row house into 23 one-bedroom condominiums with 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail or commercial space. The closing was scheduled for June 30 and work was expected to commence last summer, but the deadline was extended to October.
Kiley and Rosati could not be reached for comment. Their attorney, Henry S. Levin, said the project is “in flux” but declined to say anything further about the failed deal. Officials at the BRA also declined to be interviewed.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who has made restoration of the former hotel a priority, has said he was hopeful that the long-awaited project would get started this year.
Peter Sanborn, a member of the Worcester Square Area Neighborhood Association – one of many local neighborhood groups – said residents are “beyond frustrated” at the lack of progress on the Alexandra.
“The association and residents are very eager to see this thing move forward because it’s an important cornerstone building in our neighborhood,” he said. “We see the redevelopment of the Alexandra as another boost to the rejuvenation of this corridor.”
The South End, where the median price of a condominium is $485,000, has seen a dramatic renaissance since the early 1990s. By the end of 2003, more than $430 million had been invested in public and private funds to redevelop a section of the city that was in despair by the 1960s, according to a study of the South End by Alison E. Mori for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The survey found that as of 2004, more than 1,500 housing units – 900 of which are affordable – as well as 140,000 square feet of commercial space, a community health center and 944 parking spaces have been created. Since then, hundreds of additional luxury condos have been built including projects with names such as The Penmark and The Modern.
The Alexandra is one of just a few buildings in the neighborhood
that has not undergone a transformation. Recently, work was completed across the street at the Olympia Flowers shop and a 7-Eleven convenience store.
‘Pivotal Structures’
Jeffrey Gonyeau, project manager at Historic Boston Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps preserve endangered historic buildings in Boston, said he rides by the hotel on his bike each day and wonders why the project has been delayed.
“It’s not uncommon for these pivotal structures to remain underused and underdeveloped,” Gonyeau said. “But it is surprising that with the hotel’s prominent location and all the attention it’s received by the city and the neighborhood that the building remains at risk.”
Once a majestic gateway to Chester Square, the 5-story red-and-beige hotel at Washington Street and Massachusetts Avenue has been an eyesore for decades.
The Victorian Gothic-style Alexandra was built in 1875 as a 50-room residential hotel for empty nesters and young married couples or, in the slang of the day, “the newly wed and the nearly dead.” The building featured marble staircases, an elevator and metal-clad bay windows.
Apartments offered 2,000 square feet of space, 12-foot ceilings, plaster crown moldings, steam heat, cast iron columns and glass transoms for ventilation.
The Alexandra was a prestigious address until Boston’s elevated train was built in 1900. The noise and intrusive design of the street car brought a slow decline to the hotel and the neighborhood. By the 1960s, the hotel had closed.
It was purchased by Russell T. Britt in 1989 but he failed to obtain financing to renovate the historic property into offices or professional suites as he had planned.
In 1993, a six-alarm fire of suspicious origin swept through the hotel. Following the blaze, Britt refused to stabilize the building and was jailed briefly by Judge E. George Daher of the Boston Housing Court.
That same year, Britt turned over his interest to the first mortgagee, Metaxia Taliaris, who assigned her rights to the current owner, Peter Bakis, president of Macedonia Realty Trust.
The BRA granted Bakis approval for creation of 20 condominiums at the hotel in 2002. But Bakis showed no intention of moving forward with the project. As a result, the city asked a Boston Housing Court judge to appoint a receiver to move the redevelopment forward.
In 2004, Housing Court Judge Manuel Kyriakakis ordered Bakis to clean up the building’s exterior and prepare design work for the property. While some minor exterior work was completed, 4 of the 5 stories remain boarded up. In addition, a court receiver was appointed to chronicle Bakis’ progress on the project.
A Housing Court hearing about the Alexandra was scheduled as Banker & Tradesman went to press on Friday.
