Boston’s Great Scott set to reopen as mixed-use project
AXIOS Boston - January 30, 2025
By Mike Deehan
The Great Scott is coming back. Developers filed new plans for the mixed-use building in Lower Allston that will be home to the revived music venue and dozens of apartments.
Why it matters: For more than four decades, Great Scott was a legendary venue for local acts and national tours of artists on the brink of making it big.
- Superstars like Charli XCX and Phoebe Bridgers appeared there early in their careers, and local acts like Hallelujah the Hills and The Shills played regularly while the ‘Gansett and PBR flowed like water.
The big picture: Along with resurrecting the beloved venue, the development increases the land use at a central Allston intersection a block from the old site by replacing the current low-rise structures with a multistory mixed-use building.
Zoom in: The project brings together the owner of the Great Scott and O’Brien’s brands, which developed the popular Raffles hotel in the Back Bay and operates Vanyaland, one of the area’s top music websites.
By the numbers:
- 300-person capacity for the new Great Scott club. The old club on Beacon Street held 240.
- 105-foot building height at the corner of Harvard Avenue and Cambridge Street.
- 139 residential units in 97,300 square feet of total space.
- Zero resident parking spaces. The developers are encouraging residents to use bikes or public transit.
- Three car-sharing parking spaces for a program like ZipCar or Getaround.
The details: The new building is set to relocate the existing O’Brien’s Pub, the 75-person barroom venue that absorbed some of the Allston rock scene when the original Great Scott closed in 2020.
- The development team says O’Brien’s will stay open during construction.
- Also back will be Great Scott’s signature green awning that for years invited patrons in to hand cash over at the door, get their hand stamped and have a good time in the tight-quartered club.
Between the lines: The plan secured regulatory approval from the Boston Licensing Board in August. The board also okayed the transfer of O’Brien’s liquor license to the new site.
Inside: Plans call for “small, economically efficient” apartments with acoustic barriers to keep the sound from the stage to a minimum.
- Two retail or restaurant spaces will be on the ground floor alongside the two clubs.
The bottom line: The project is a win for local music lovers still mourning the loss of the old club and for proponents of denser, car-free housing in Lower Allston.
- There’s no reopening date set, but developers expect an 18-month construction phase.