Fenway developer builds consensus

Developer Steven B. Samuels learned his way around the shoals of Boston City Hall and neighborhood politics in the early 1990s, when he dared to build South Bay Center, the first supermarket-anchored shopping center in a big Northeast city in a generation.

Now he and partner William P. McQuillan are helping to remake another neighborhood, where the politics are formidable, activist groups are numerous, and an 800-pound gorilla resides, in the form of the we're-staying-at-Fenway Red Sox baseball team.

Samuels' Trilogy is a $220 million, 580-unit, 17-story apartment building with retail space along the street, its first phase opening next spring. It will be the largest addition to the famous but aging West Fenway neighborhood since the old Sears, Roebuck and Co. warehouse, across Brookline Avenue, became Landmark Center five years ago.

Last month, Samuels won approval for a large residential, office, and retail complex at 1330 Boylston St., which to the neighborhood's relief will replace single-story bars, a Domino's Pizza shop, and a parking lot.

The 1330 and Trilogy projects are the area's first two projects drawn up under city zoning rules adopted in 2004 with broad backing from community groups. The rules limit height and density; buildings as high as 150 feet will be allowed in some locations.

Samuels' projects fit not only the new zoning for the former industrial area but also the vision laid out by neighborhood groups. They want a pedestrian-friendly residential neighborhood leavened with businesses and shops.

''The Trilogy project has helped everyone believe this area can be transformed along the lines we've advocated, from a strip to a neighborhood main street," said Carl Nagy-Koechlin, executive director of the Fenway Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit neighborhood group. Neighbors particularly like the inclusion in 1330 Boylston of a new home for the Fenway Community Health Center.

Samuels and McQuillan, through the joint venture of their two development companies, Samuels & Associates and Boylston Properties Co., have plans down the road too. They control land on either side of Trilogy, including the D'Angelo Sandwich Shop and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. building and adjacent garage. Samuels said they may find a spot for a new supermarket.

Samuels dislikes the neighborhood fighting inflexible developers can spur. When he began building Trilogy, for instance, he wiped out a large parking lot that generated a lot of revenue. So Samuels asked the city's permission to increase the number of parking spaces in a nearby garage he owned. But that conflicted with the neighborhood's desire to eliminate parking and reduce traffic.

''I made a call and asked them not to go for that," recalled Bill Richardson, president of the Fenway Civic Association. Samuels ''immediately saw the wisdom of that and pulled the application . . . From a short-term perspective, it would have been a steady income for him," Richardson said, ''but I think he saw he was going to need to work with the neighborhood in the long term, and this was a better way to go about it."

Recently, Samuels talked about how he became one of the busiest if not the most visible developers. He was hardly new to the development, or to retailing, when he arrived in Boston in 1983. Samuels, who grew up in Cleveland, is the third generation in a family that developed retail space. They owned the First National supermarket chain, and between his generation and his father's have built or renovated more than 80 suburban centers.

''We know retail like the back of our hands," said Samuels, whose two brothers, sister, and wife also work in the industry.

Samuels went to Ohio State University and worked in Cleveland, later moving to Connecticut, where he joined the family supermarket firm, then moved to Boston to help liquidate a department store company that included Kings. He started Samuels & Associates in the mid-1980s, building suburban shopping centers. In 1991 came the South Bay opportunity. When he arrived in Boston, Samuels said, he was undaunted by the task of developing in a neglected part of the city that had long needed a supermarket and other retail services, but that people were afraid to visit.

South Bay Center, a huge success, was later sold to Edens & Avants, a shopping center company Samuels continues to do business with. ''I got a crash course, based on how the city worked," he said. ''I absolutely have a company philosophy steeped in consensus building."

Eight years after South Bay Center opened -- at the request of the city, and for no profit -- Samuels successfully codeveloped Grove Hall Mecca, a smaller commercial center in an even more disadvantaged neighborhood.

''I'm looking forward to doing some other business ventures with him," said Sister Virginia Morrison of the Nation of Islam. She is executive director of the Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation, which built Grove Hall Mecca with Samuels as a consultant. ''He continues to be a person who is interested in helping folks grow," she said.

Even as he has moved toward urban projects, Samuels continues to develop suburban retail centers, including the Hingham Shipyard. He also signed an agreement to purchase two buildings owned by the Institute of Contemporary Art in the Back Bay, and is studying the Filene's building downtown.

''Boylston Street is a horrible experience in a terrific neighborhood," said developer John Rosenthal. With Samuels' projects, ''Everything between 1330 and Trilogy is improved in the kind of urban village concept" many want, he said. ''Steve Samuels is making it happen and will be a huge beneficiary."

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.