New York Times

SQUARE FEET; A SoHo for the South Boston Waterfront

After Tony Goldman first saw this city's turn-of-the-last-century manufacturing and warehouse district in Fort Point, he took mere minutes to envision the district's redevelopment.

''This is a snapshot of architectural history,'' said Mr. Goldman, the founder and leader of Goldman Properties and the developer who is described as one of the inventors of SoHo. He was on a recent tour of the 16 buildings he owns along with a partner, the Archon Group, which is an affiliate of the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs (no relation to Mr. Goldman).

Like SoHo's cast iron structures, the buildings of Fort Point were built in a distinct period, with the same architects designing all of them, Mr. Goldman said. ''It's not that each individual building is so important, but with its sheer mass, it creates tremendous aesthetic power and an aura that's unique,'' he said.

Since he helped turn around SoHo in the 1970s by attracting artists to its industrial loft spaces and eventually turning the area into a world-class shopping district, Mr. Goldman has tried his hand at redeveloping the derelict quarters of other large cities: South Beach and Wynwood in Miami and the B3 district of Philadelphia.

Fort Point Channel district in Boston seemed like the perfect neighborhood for Mr. Goldman's brand of alchemy, he said. It includes dozens of historic buildings in the South Boston waterfront, an isolated, gritty area that was reconnected with downtown Boston when an elevated barrier, Interstate 93, was relocated underground in the Big Dig project.

The five- and six-story red and yellow brick buildings, all built from the 1880s to the 1920s by the Boston Wharf Company, still comprise a strong commercial district full of artistic industrial uses, architecture and design firms and contractors. There was also, at the district's height in the early 1990s, an enclave of 600 artists, a population that has declined to about 400 people in recent years.

Architectural experts say it is the only industrial neighborhood in Boston that comes close to TriBeCa or SoHo in architecture.

Mr. Goldman, a self-described real estate ''doctor'' who specializes in neighborhood reinvention, reuse of historic buildings and retail design, has even bought the original Boston Wharf Company sign -- refurbished recently in ruby red neon. He also bought the trademark to the area.

Mr. Goldman said he intended to rebrand the quarter as the Boston Wharf District, and construction of the first phase of his project, which begins in March, entails creating 87 condominiums at 316-322 Summer Street. A second phase, scheduled for construction next year, will add 150 to 200 more. The price of the apartments will be about $400,000 to over $1 million, with an average price of about $500,000. Within five years, Goldman Properties also plans to create about 90,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, said Albert Price, a managing director of the company.

The type of retail establishments chosen will be critical to redeveloping the neighborhood, Mr. Goldman said. He is forgoing national name-brand retailers, which often pay higher rents, in favor of boutique retailers, like a florist, a hair salon, a vintage car showroom, lighting stores and art galleries, among others. He said boutique retailers can be worth the expense when they attract a buyer willing to pay more to live there.

''I know if I bring this kind of customer in, or this kind of restaurant in, it's going to have a huge impact on the upstairs value of the square footage,'' he said. ''It's hard to prove, but I can prove it, because I've been through it.''

Mr. Goldman also plans to dig up pavement in alleys to reveal original cobblestone and rail ties, and will add architectural flourishes to facades like awnings to create the feel of the meatpacking district in New York.

Berkeley Investments, a real estate development, investment and asset management company in Boston purchased about 13 buildings, mostly containing commercial space, in the Fort Point Channel district two years ago. Coincidentally, it has adopted tactics used by Goldman Properties in the B3 district of Philadelphia to develop the retail mix in their buildings, said Tim Love, principal of Utile Inc. Architecture and Planning of Boston, a firm hired to do that planning.

''Our planning work was based in many ways on the strategy used by Goldman in Philadelphia,'' Mr. Love said. ''The economic equation is, I'm going to subsidize this destination restaurant entrepreneur to get them here, because then I can generate more income from the condominiums and the co-ops. Because if a developer is only analyzing the revenue generation of the retail alone, it doesn't make any economic sense.''

The strategy means less focus on physical planning -- especially since the buildings already exist -- and more focus on marketing, Mr. Love said. Both Berkeley and Goldman have been competing for the same boutique retailers, he said.

Berkeley, which is upgrading an office building at 12 Farnsworth Street, and redeveloping 346-354 Congress Street into luxury condominiums called FP3, has been adding popular Boston restaurateurs to the mix, said Young K. Park, president and principal of Berkeley. He has signed a branch of the Flour Bakery and Cafe from the South End, along with three spinoff restaurants created by the owner of No. 9 Park in Beacon Hill.

''The South End has been a little bit of a model for what we're doing in terms of putting in restaurants and boutiques,'' Mr. Park said.

He agreed that Mr. Goldman was also an influence.

''I think we both are kind of reading from the same script,'' Mr. Park said. ''We think that restaurants and bakers are kind of essential ingredients, at least at an initial stage.''

Artists in the community say they would like Goldman Properties to support an effort to create 200 studios, where artists can live and work, to retain the character of a community with a long contemporary history of artistic pursuits.

''We do take exception to some of the comments that a white knight developer is going to ride into the wasteland and turn it into a new neighborhood, because it already is a neighborhood,'' said Cheryl Forté, a board member of the Fort Point Cultural Coalition, who has worked in the neighborhood for three decades.

In fact, Fort Point artists became property developers themselves more than two decades ago in an attempt to secure their space in the quarter. They have created 249 A Street and 300 Summer Street, both small developments, and then Midway Studios, a much larger development that opened in 2005. The latter became a possibility when another large property owner, Beacon Capital Partners, turned over 206,500 square feet to artists that was then converted to 89 art studios as well as an event space, cafe and arts-related commercial space.

The artists say they hope that Goldman and Berkeley will follow suit.

''The difference between Fort Point and some of the other areas that developers have redeveloped before is this neighborhood has never been blighted,'' said Claudia Ravaschiere, an artist who works at a studio on Melcher Street and is president of Fort Point Arts Community Inc. ''These aren't burnt out, abandoned buildings that nobody's wanted. Somebody's always wanted these buildings.''