By Patrick McGroarty
News Editor

The owners of Bayside Expo Center, which has struggled to compete with Boston's new convention center, last week unveiled a conceptual plan to redevelop 21.5 acres of property on Columbia Point as a mixed use residential and retail destination at a cost that could approach $1 billion. Elected officials and neighborhood leaders briefed about the plan last week were enthusiastic about the shift in use for the sprawling waterfront campus proposed by Corcoran Jennison, Inc. in a morning meeting with them last Thursday.

Still, most agreed that a number of challenges will confront the effort, including the density of the development, the height of several potential residential towers, and the task of controlling traffic along the already congested Morrissey Boulevard and in Kosciuszko Circle.

"The three issues that come to my mind are density, height, and traffic,' said City Council President Maureen Feeney in a phone interview this week. "But aren't those the issues that face every project we work with?"

The project would bring to the peninsula a mix of 20 to 40 small retailers - restaurants, franchises, and specialty shops - two mid-sized retail anchors, and a stock of condominiums and rental residences. The residential units would be located both above retail space and in freestanding structures whose height might stretch well above that of current buildings on the peninsula.

"Our orientation is to make a place nice and unique enough to give Dorchester new face in the marketplace," said Richard Heape, of Streetworks, a company that has been enlisted by Corcoran Jennison, Inc. to help design and manage the redevelopment.

While the plan at this point is very general, Corcoran Jennison's president Joseph J. Corcoran said that a timeline for recruiting retailers and clarifying the plan would move quickly, with a goal of applying for initial permitting early this fall.

"We're anxious to get started," he said. "We have a business that's not doing well, and that is really driving our timeline."

The fate of the property, currently home to the Bayside Expo Center, has been a source of speculation since last summer, when state legislation allowed for the trade shows on which the center depends to be held at the much larger Massachusetts Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston, effectively eliminating Bayside's business base.

The plan discussed last week would leave intact the Bayside office center and Doubletree hotel, as well as the independently owned Boston Teachers Union hall. The Harbor Point residential development, which was built by Corcoran Jennison and is co-owned by the company and the development's tenants, would be unaffected.

Heape said that a mid-sized grocer - like a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's - would be crucial in bringing regular off-site customers to the new development. That and other larger retailers would likely be situated closer to Morrissey and the MBTA's Red Line station, with denser residential development near the waterfront and a cluster of mixed-use urban streets in between.

"We're not looking at any store above fifty or sixty thousand square feet," said Heape. "Any other store would be no more than half that size, maybe thirty thousand square feet."

A crucial challenge to planners will be redesigning pedestrian traffic from the T station and automobile traffic on Morrissey Boulevard and in the chronically congested Kosciuszko Circle.

Heape said that creative solutions to those problems might make it unnecessary to completely reconfigure streets around the development.

"It's a problem not in volume, but in geometry," said Heapes, of automobile traffic around the peninsula.

Heaps and Corcoran also indicated that they would look to the state and the city's transportation department for help in devising a workable plan for traffic flow and pedestrian access. State and city elected officials said this week that it is reasonable to ask the government to work as a partner on a project of this scale.

City Council President Maureen Feeney made an example of Peabody Square, where a city effort to beautify and improve the streetscape is taking place concurrent to a major private residential development and an overhaul of the Ashmont T station.

"I think a good example of something like this is Peabody Square, where we have a housing project and a transportation project and went to the city and said, 'Is there any way you can make this area more pedestrian friendly?'" said Feeney. "That's an example of collaboration that drew together a lot of entities. Most projects that are really a success have that kind of collaboration, and with something on this scale, that's what we'd be talking about with a redevelopment of Bayside."

State Rep. Martin Walsh, who has advocated for the state to make a commitment to major renovations along Morrissey Boulevard that were outlined in a master plan released in 1998, said the development is a positive for the community and an opportunity to revisit those plans.

"I think the state and the city will have to step up here, but I think the beauty about it is it forces the DCR to address a concern that's been out there a long time with the traffic flow through Kosciuszko Circle."

The plan was unveiled last Thursday morning at a meeting of Dorchester elected officials and neighborhood leaders.

"People are cognizant that this use [the expo center] isn't going to be here anymore," said Corcoran after that meeting. "They have been fairly accepting of the fact that something else is going to be here, and there doesn't seem to be anyone offended to date."

Dierdre Habershaw, president of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, said this week that while she also had reservations about density and traffic, particularly during construction, it appeared to be a benefit for Dorchester.

"On the surface it appears to be a more appropriate use than the Expo Center was," said Habershaw. "Right now on a beautiful piece of property on the shoreline there is no accessibility for the public, no community benefit. In fact, the Expo center is occasionally a major intrusion. This is something that potentially might be a benefit for the community."

As Corcoran Jennison and Streetworks proceed, consulting with city and state agencies as well as courting retailers throughout the summer months, the developers will also embark on a community process to inform and seek feedback from Dorchester residents and civic leaders. The first community meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 20 at the Bayside Expo Center.