A Blue Hill Avenue property owner will host a meeting on Thursday evening (Oct. 19) to pitch one of his two storefront spaces for re-use as a community gathering hall and meeting space, a need that has been pegged as significant for Blue Hill Avenue in recent years.

Cleon Byron has made significant renovations to the 4,000-square-foot space at 1102 Blue Hill Ave, where he has been working to open a public event space. Next door, at 1102A, he has been trying to open a cannabis dispensary, but that proposal has been delayed as state regulators review his plan. “You have to pivot sometimes, and we’ve pivoted; basically, with the dispensary we have to start all over again,” he said.

“Right now, because we have this other space next door [1102], we’ve been using it as a community space. We need to get it official as a function hall and community space with the city. We’ve had kids’ events, and art classes and birthday parties for kids that have lost their parents and a lot of other things as well.”

The site also hosted a workshop for local DJ’s to train others in the entertainment business and in how to start their own DJ businesses. They’ve also had other job skills workshops and, if it is made legal, they would be able to accommodate others that already have requested the space, which has a projector, a stage, and can accommodate other meetings or events, he said.

Byron notes that the Blue Hill Avenue corridor has been targeted by city leaders and entertainment professionals as a place in the city with little to no event space. Since the loss of the Caribbean Culture Center (Three C’s), very few new spaces have emerged to accommodate community events, resulting in people hosting events in their homes or out of town.

The meeting will be online on at 6 p.m. Join by logging in at tinyurl.com/1102BlueCommunity.