Tower may soon shed its fund-raising cloak

Ads helped Pine Street Inn raise $2m for repairs

To fund repairs to the Pine Street Inn tower, the nonprofit has leased ad space on the building. (Globe Staff Photo / George Rizer)

A tower more than a century old that rises 156 feet above the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter will finally be visible again this fall, eight years after it was surrounded by scaffolding and covered with advertising banners, according to shelter officials.

Advertising contracts have helped fund a restoration project that was originally estimated at $800,000, but has ballooned to more than $2.3 million and taken longer than anticipated, said Barbara Trevisan, spokeswoman for the Pine Street Inn, a nonprofit that provides emergency shelter and services to homeless people, housing about 700 nightly. But the ads also have obscured the tower's facade, prompting objections from Boston preservationists, who have long urged the shelter to commit to a date for removing the banners and scaffolding.

"The fact is, if we could, we would keep [the advertising] up longer to get some additional revenue," Trevisan said. But she acknowledged that the South End Landmark District Commission and other neighborhood groups are eager to see it go. "We know it's time to get it down," Trevisan said.

Located on Harrison Avenue just off the Southeast Expressway, the tower is visible to commuters from the north, south, and east. Boston architect Edmund March Wheelwright modeled it after the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, the old town hall in Siena, Italy. The Boston building and tower were built between 1892 and 1894, and used as headquarters for the Boston Fire Department until about 50 years ago.

The cost of the project, and the time needed to complete it, increased after more structural and water damage than expected were discovered, according to Trevisan. The work was actually completed late last year, she said, but the scaffolding will remain in place until October or November, when an advertising contract with Verizon Communications Inc. expires. She could not provide a more specific date.

Since 2000, other companies - such as Dunkin' Donuts Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. - have used the tower for advertising, generating more than $2 million in revenue for the shelter. The money, along with a $300,000 grant from Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., was used to pay for the project, officials said.

The shelter considered it "lucky" that advertising proved to be an option for fund-raising, Trevisan said.

Pine Street Inn's tower is not part of the South End Landmark District, said Kate Neuner, preservation planner for the South End Landmark District Commission, which means the group does not have the authority to force the shelter to remove the ads. Still, the commission does not believe "a historic landmark should be used for advertising purposes," Neuner said.

"The thought that it can come down soon makes us all very happy, but we haven't heard anything about it."

Trevisan said Pine Street Inn president Lyndia Downie has been in contact with the commission, and informally told it of the ad's impending removal. A formal notice will be sent soon, she said.

Peter Brown, managing partner of Braintree advertising firm Direct Media Inc., said he came up with the idea to use the tower as an advertising vehicle while driving on the expressway in June 2000.

"The whole tower was shrouded in a black, rather ugly, mesh," Brown said. He approached the shelter with the idea of advertising to raise funds to offset the construction costs.

"It just so happened that they were in a quandary at the time," he said, adding that the shelter had no funds for the project. "If they weren't able to find the revenue, I guess it would still be a landmark building covered in black mesh. It wouldn't be fixed."

Anne Wunderli, the shelter's facilities director, said the tower plays a role in emphasizing the nonprofit's mission.

"The Pine Street Inn is a beacon of hope," she said. "The tower has worked very nicely with that kind of image."

Elizabeth Campbell can be reached at ecampbell@globe.com.