Developer wins approval to buy and renovate sad old Commonwealth Avenue private club - and put in a controversial roof deck

The Board of Appeals this week approved developer Sandy Edgerley's plans to turn the old Algonquin Club at 217 Commonwealth Ave. into a state-of-the-art social club aimed at the sort of well off Millennials who have been finding other ways to occupy their non-work time.

As now happens routinely with projects in the Back Bay, the South End, Beacon Hill and South Boston, the sticking point for her proposal was a roof deck - in this case, the 1,300-square-foot deck she wants to put atop the 130-year-old club for which she currently has a purchase-and-sale agreement that hinges on her winning city approval to keep operating the building as a private club.

To try to quell neighborhood opposition to the deck in her second Back Bay social-club proposal - Edgerley's Hexagon Properties originally bought an old office building at Comm Ave. and Berkeley Street for that purpose - Edgerley came up with a plan in which the deck would be sunk roughly two feet below the current roof line and would be surrounded with seven-foot-tall glass walls.

Edgerley's attorney, Michael Ross, told the zoning board at a Tuesday hearing that she also agreed to limit its use to a maximum of 65 people at a time, rather than seeking a permit for up to the 400 people it could support, and to install sound-monitoring equipment around the deck's edges so that parties that started veering towards excessive loudness could be told to pipe down. The club will also not allow live performances on the deck.

The mayor's office supported the project. The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, residents living near the 130-year-old club and state Rep. Jay Livingstone, however, said they remained unconvinced by a report by a sound engineer Edgerley hired that the glass walls, the deck's height above the surrounding buildings and the monitoring system would keep all the noise at bay - in part based on research by a sound engineer hired by the neighborhood association who said that noise from parties and other events on the roof could still exceed nuisance levels.

Julie Corrigan, who lives on Marlborough Street behind the club, said she worried about increased noise, not just from the deck but from inside the building. She said she can already tell whenever the club hosts a wedding. Ross acknowledged that in the past, the club has stuffed pillows and other stuff in walls in an attempt to quell noise and said that Edgerley would use more state-of-the-art materials to insulate the building.

Elliott Laffer, a board member of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, said his group actually appreciated all the work Edgerley has proposed to update the club and keep it going and had no problems with her proposals to add a gym and more guest rooms. But the deck, he said, was just not appropriate because of the noise potential.

NABB also raised the issue of whether the glass walls would be a "violation" of the maximum height allowed in that part of the Back Bay. The building already exceeds what is now allowed, but is grandfathered in. Patrick Mahoney, another of Edgerley's attorneys, however, said that the walls are not part of the roof, for which the height requirements apply.

In addition to the deck and gym, Edgerly wants to increase the number of guest rooms from 6 to 10. She also plans to hire a full-time valet and "receiving manager" to end double parking on Comm. Ave. and to build a refrigerated room for trash storage so that trash would no longer fester and attract rats in an outside dumpster, Ross said. Edgerley will also seek to increase the maximum allowable occupancy of the building from the current 750 or 775 to 988.

Ross said that the gym in particular was a must. "In order to bring this club back to the caliber of place people might want to attend we need to have a fitness room," he said.

Although the focus of membership drives will be people with plenty of disposable income, Ross said Edgerley is committed to ensuring a diverse membership. As an example, he said Edgerley is looking at letting artists donate art to the club as a way to become members.

Ross and even Algonquin Club members said years of slow membership decline and deferred maintainence means the current club is in desperate need of upgrades.

One Gloucester Street resident and Algonquin Club member said it was imperative for the board to approve the project to support a key part of the fabric of life for the city of Boston. "This is a gem of our whole society here and we believe it needs to be supported as such, he said.

Bruce Jacobs, who lives on Exeter Street, said Edgerley should be applauded for her work to restore the club. "There's no one that's more invested in this city, that cares more about this city," he said. "This is not a financial enterprise, this is something that will truly benefit the City of Boston."

However, Edgerley will be running the renovated club as a for-profit enterprise - a point that Eugene Kelly of Commonwealth Avenue used in opposing the entire proposal, not just the roof deck. Commercial enterprises, especially ones with the potential to attract large numbers of people, belong on Newbury or Boylston streets, not a residential street like Commonwealth Avenue.

Stephen Young of Beacon Street said he worried about the precedent the deck would set - he worried what would happen if Fisher College sold its administrative building, which has a deck it now rarely uses, to a similar commercial enterprise.