Parking and Shops to Replace Service Station on Kennedy St.

Construction crews may soon begin tearing down the Gulf Oil Station at the intersection of John F. Kennedy and Eliot Streets to make way for a new parking garage and retail complex.

Plans for the $8-10 million complex tentatively call for 300 to 350 public parking spaces and about 15,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, Vincent J. Panico, one of 13 investors in the project, said yesterday.

The complex is one of three parking complexes now planned or under construction to help alleviate the parking shortage in the Harvard Square area.

Harvard Square has lost 1500 street parking spaces due to street widening and increased construction, said Charles E. Sage, chairman of the parking and traffic committee of the Harvard Square Business Association.

Water Torture

Sage added that the proposed garage will help alleviate demand for parking spaces, but that it would only be "a drop in the bucket" in solving the Square's parking dilemma.

Sage said that to accomodate increasing demand, the Square need 10,000 additional spaces by 1985.