Boston’s newly renovated District A-1 Police Station near the Government Center Garage could face a wrecking ball.
Less than a year after taxpayers paid $5 million to renovate a police station, the building could be demolished as part of a revised plan to redevelop Boston’s Government Center Garage.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) has asked Raymond Property Co., the garage’s owner, to expand the scope of One Con-gress Street, a transit-oriented project adjacent to the Haymarket MBTA station. Under discussion is a proposal that would raze not only the garage, but District A-1 Police Headquarters and another city-owned building on nearby New Sudbury Street.
But a city watchdog agency is raising questions about the scheme.
“If City Hall is discussing an idea like that, they might have brought it up before spending millions to renovate the police station, which just re-opened in November,” said Jeffrey W. Conley, executive director of the Boston Finance Commission, or FinCom, an independent agency that monitors the city’s finances.
Last year, Bulfinch Congress Holdings, a Raymond subsidiary, paid $243 million for the 11-story facility. It includes 2,310 parking spaces, 275,000 square feet of office space and several retailers.
The Boston developer wants to replace the garage with a mix of hotel, office, condominiums and retail. Erasing the city’s largest park-ing lot would reconnect the North End and the Bulfinch Triangle neighborhoods with the downtown. Raymond officials have held a series of public meetings asking residents for ideas on what uses would meet the needs of the adjacent neighborhoods.
A BRA spokeswoman insists nothing has been decided and that Raymond has yet to file a proposal with the city. But under the plan in the discussion stages, Raymond would foot the bill for a new police station as part of a community benefit.
In the BRA’s defense, Stephen G. Kasnet, chief executive officer at Raymond, said the city had no way of knowing about the garage sale.
“In fairness, we were negotiating to buy the garage when the city made the decision to rehab the police station,” he said. “It was purely a timing issue.”
Kasnet did not know how much the building would cost.
The $4.8 million renovation for the police station began in 2006 and included a HVAC system, plumbing improvements, electrical switch gear, locker room upgrades, new women’s locker room, floor crack repair, two new elevators, new finishes throughout the building and changes on the 5th floor from a juvenile detention area to administrative office space, according to a spokeswoman for Mayor Tho-mas M. Menino.
