Faneuil Hall Marketplace - by Carol Todreas

Even the mayor of Boston acknowledged that Faneuil Hall Marketplace (FHM) is tired. Restaurant/entertainment/retail activity has slowly migrated from FHM (Quincy Market and its two flanking buildings) to the Seaport, Fenway, and to Somerville’ Assembly Row. FHM holds no glam for the Instagram Set, and that lack of luster affects tourism, tax income for the city, revenue for merchants and owners, and on and on. Its time to make history again with FHM …no one disagrees. 

FHM is still an unrivaled historic property located in one of Boston’s hot spots. Opportunity abounds, but not for the ordinary. To reinvent FHM as a major attraction, it will take major disruption of the standard retail development approach. Fierce competition and an uncertain economy prevail, but how different is that from any other time? 

Regarding opportunity, first and foremost Boston is brimming with innovators and entrepreneurs of all types, but where do they go in Boston to start a new retail businesses? Also there is still no maker space for new retail designers of clothes, accessories or shoe making. There is no available/affordable space for small art galleries, nor small innovative food and drink enterprises. There are no flexible spaces clustered together for pop-up stores and events, and there is no experimental space to group new ventures in direct-to-consumer brands in new digital companies entering the physical marketplace in wellness, home, and fashion. 

New developments with new and reborn retailers are emerging in New York, LA, Chicago, and could be in Boston. Showfield’s in Manhatten, is an example. Located on four floors in an old building on the edge of SOHO, the retail center utilizes short term leases for e-commerce entrepreneurs, designs their spaces, provides sales associates for each space and manages operations. The retailer only has to provide goods or services. The shopper discovers new products, watches demonstrations, and has the experience of a bustling marketplace.

Boston is ripe for imaginative 21st century retail development and FHM is there to be fixed, but nothing ordinary will work. One new idea for this challenge would be to create a multidisciplinary “Think Tank” to assess the market, location, changes in living and working, emerging retail concepts and programming, design/tech innovations, and any other relevant social and economic issues. 

The Think Tank would include an architect, social scientist, technology specialist, city planner, artist, restaurateur, retail entrepreneur, retail real estate specialist, tenant representative, banker/investor and owner. 

The result of their meetings would be: A vision, development plan, and a creative public/private strategy for financing. What then? Execution.

FHM was totally re-imagined in 1976. It set the gold standard for about three decades. Leasing was tough then…some things don’t change. 

Carol Todreas is a principal at Todreas Hanley Associates, Cambridge, Mass.