Not just a 4,000-seat music hall: Charlestown could one day also get a hotel, cinema, bowling alley and pool hall

The developer of the Hood Park complex off Rutherford Avenue has filed a request with the BPDA to be allowed to change its original plans for a business and residential development into a business, residential and entertainment park - possibly with bees.

Colliers International won permission in 2000 to convert the 20-acre former H.P. Hood headquarters and dairy into an 1.2-million-square-foot office park. Last year, it won permission to add a 177-unit apartment building, which is now under construction.

Now, the company is seeking BPDA approval for a 4,000-seat music venue and a restaurant and the possibility of one day adding other uses that could include a hotel, a movie theater, a billiards parlor, a bowling alley and shops. A day care is also listed as a possibility.

Also included in its proposal: "Accessory keeping of honey bees." Two hotels downtown already have rooftop apiaries.

Colliers says it could do all this without changing the total square footage of the project.

The key to is the 990-space, five-level, 95-foot high, 75,000-square-foot parking garage Colliers wants to build on land where it currently only has permission to build an 812-space garage.

The 4,000-square-foot music venue and a restaurant, for which Colliers says it has operators, would go into the first floor of the garage. The company says that the upper floors will be designed for conversion from parking into commercial, residential space or hotel space if the need for parking spaces decreases.

To account for the larger size of the garage, Colliers has proposed shrinking an approved but un-built 102,000-square-foot office building to about 27,000 square feet.

Colliers is counting on nearby traffic improvements from Sullivan Square to the North Washington Street bridge being paid for by the city and the impending Wynn casino to help it handle the extra traffic.

The company adds that the garage should be able to handle parking demands from both the offices in the park and the music hall, since the former requires day parking and the latter night and evening parking.

Notice of project change (12.3M PDF) - has renderings and building and traffic overviews.
PDA development plan (3.2M PDF) - the drier zoning-type changes required.