Boston to hold design contest for Dudley Square site

The city will sponsor a design competition this year to turn the remnant of the historic Ferdinand Building in Roxbury's Dudley Square into the most environmentally friendly government office building ever, Mayor Thomas M. Menino said last night.

Receiving an award at the opening of the American Institute of Architects annual convention in Boston, Menino said the city will ask for applications from teams that want to make the city-owned structure a 21st century model for goverment employees to work in.

"I want to work with the community and you - the best and brightest design professionals from around the country - so we capture every ounce of the Ferdinand's potential," Menino said at the Institute of Contemporary Art on the South Boston Waterfront.

Three to five teams will be chosen in July, Menino said, and each will be given about $25,000 to come up with a design that is green, flexible enough for new and unforeseen future uses, and valuable to the community in that it includes restaurants, shops, and areas for use by neighborhood groups.

The winning visions for a new Ferdinand complex are expected to be presented by about Dec. 1, Menino said, and as the development continues, the public is encouraged to contribute ideas.

The city has been promising redevelopment of the old furniture building site for years. Last week, Roxbury residents got a look at blueprints submitted in a previous competition for the revitalization of the whole Dudley Square area.

Menino will attend a ceremonial demolition at the Ferdinand site tomorrow, but only a portion of the building exists today. The ornate facade is to be incorporated into the office redevelopment, in a structure that could be 10 stories high.

Menino tied his announcement of the Ferdinand competition to his more controversial plans to build a new City Hall on the waterfront in South Boston, and to allow the Government Center area - including underused City Hall Plaza and City Hall itself - to be developed for new uses.

He said the lessons learned from the creation of Government Center in the 1960s - a building that is unfriendly to residents and a generally unappealing public space. - will be applied in the evaluation of designs for the Ferdinand Building.

The 33,000-square-foot Dudley Square site was occupied by the 1899 Ferdinand Building and two other structures, but it has been largely readied for redevelopment. Much of the site has been unused for more than 25 years.

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