Faneuil Hall Marketplace operators pledge to keep most pushcarts, but say offices in one building have to go

The general manager of Faneuil Hall Marketplace says a large-scale redevelopment of the historic site will leave most of the pushcarts in place.

Pushcart owners, however, remain unconvinced.

And office tenants of the South Marketplace building would have to move to make way for the boutique hotel the marketplace's management firm wants to put there, Kristen Keefe told city councilors at a hearing today.

Keefe said plans for the marketplace spruce up, which could cost $50 million to $75 million, would mean new outdoor spaces with room for activities such as chess and yoga classes, no more brick walkways and more seats for dining. She added office tenants on the third through fifth floors would be evicted to make way for the hotel.

The hotel proposal is large enough to require BRA oversight, city officials said. The idea is news to at least one current tenant.

Keefe said the current plans call for reducing the number of pushcarts from just 56 to 53. The steel and glass canopies along the main Quincy Market building would be replaced with all glass structures - which were not possible with the 1970s technology under which the current ones were built, she said.

She added the currently vacant old florist shop would be leased for retail. A new glass structure on the site of the old information booth on the other side of the main building would be replaced with a permanent glass structure for use as restaurant seating.

A major goal, she said, is to turn the marketplace into a shopping district that would attract not just tourists, but local residents.

Carol Troxell, president of the Faneuil Hall Merchants Association, said she is concerned that the local merchants, who helped save the marketplace 40 years ago and who continue to draw large numbers of visitors, will be displaced by national chains.

She pointed to Al Mercantino, a sandwich stall evicted the day after Thanksgiving after 30 years in the marketplace.

"That's why we're being evicted, for an elevator going up for an international company," an Al Mercantino owner told councilors, referring to the impending Uniqlo..

Troxell said marketplace managers have been keeping vendors in the dark.

"There has been no communication at all," agreed Susan Luongo, who owns a pushcart and who said the commitment to keep 56 pushcarts was news to her.

Luongo said she remains concerned that pushcarts will be changed so dramatically that they will be rendered unrecognizable - and possibly unprofitable. Image pushcarts without wheels, replaced by boxy "retail mobile units," she said, adding pushcart owners do not think Ashkenazy is listening to them.

Keefe said Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. paid the city $3.8 million in lieu of taxes this year - an amount based on the shopping center's retail revenue.

Keefe added that marketplace managers plan to crack down on current tenants who have not been paying their rents - in some cases for years, she said. Ashkenazy is currently owed $750,000 in back rent, she said.