After Fight Over Replacement of Allston Sound Museum, City Kicks Off Redevelopment

The city of Boston officially kickstarted a process to replace the Sound Museum on Monday, soliciting requests to develop a new site for the cherished Brighton rehearsal space demolished in 2023 to make way for lab space.

In an unusual arrangement, the mixed-used development will be located at 290 North Beacon Street and is jointly owned by the Boston Housing Authority and the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. The building will also include both 60 to 150 affordable apartments, in addition to its 40,000 square feet of rehearsal space — roughly the same size as the former Sound Museum.

The fate of the Sound Museum’s replacement has since been hotly contested by the musicians who once rehearsed there.

When lab developer IQHQ purchased the Sound Museum property at 155 North Beacon St., it forced out hundreds of musicians who depended on the business as an increasingly rare affordable space to rehearse in Allston-Brighton. Over 200 residents and musicians ultimately signed a petition to keep the Sound Museum in business at 155 North Beacon Street.

As a condition for the city’s approval to redevelop the site, IQHQ donated a separate Brighton property on which a long-term replacement for the space would be built. But bitter conflict soon broke out over who should operate both the new rehearsal studio and an interim swing space for the displaced musicians that opened in Dorchester, to be used until a permanent one is built.

Katherine and William “Des” Desmond, who had operated the Sound Museum for 32 years, fiercely opposed giving the interim space to another operator, The Recording Co., and accused the city of stealing their business.

With the request for proposals issued this week for a permanent replacement in Brighton, all parties involved in the dispute now have a timeline in sight for its resolution — even as it remains unclear whether the Desmonds will ultimately operate the new space.

The city officially obtained the site on March 27 from developer IQHQ, more than two years after IQIQ committed to transfer the property to the city. The process to redevelop 290 North Beacon has largely stalled, with just one recorded community meeting last summer since June 2023, when Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 announced the plan for the land.

According to the city’s press release at the time, the project marks the first time the city has secured a physical building for permanent arts and culture use.

The Desmonds still operate a smaller rehearsal space on Hichborn Street, which — alongside The Recording Co.’s 55 Morrissey Boulevard — has accommodated artists displaced from the Sound Museum over the last two years.

Jesse Vengrove, a musician and former tenant of the Sound Museum, criticized the planning process for the new rehearsal studio’s site, arguing the city had done a poor job of publicizing it to the neighborhood.

While public meetings are typically uploaded to the city’s website, the only notification of the meeting was posted on Instagram and on an Allston-Brighton community discussion forum on Facebook. Many residents involved in the Sound Museum’s replacement nearly missed the meeting as a result.

“That was one of the frustrations I thought about the meeting. It was not widely publicized,” said Vengrove.

Joseph Henry, director of cultural planning at the MOAC, said such concerns were “totally fair criticism.”

“It’s a fair point and it’s being addressed,” Henry said, while referencing project consultants that the city was planning to bring in as a source of potential improvement. He added that the community engagement process will include operators and artists from neighboring cities like Cambridge.

Vengrove also said the December meeting was productive, and that he left optimistic about the new rehearsal space.

“To hear the general enthusiasm from everyone on the city side about projects was very cool,” Vengrove said. “I would like to see a project that is focusing on two important needs — housing, which is obviously critical, and then also including the arts and music.”

Still, the project lacks a specific timeline. The BHA’s website lists May 12 as its deadline for receiving developer RFPs, the first step of many in a years-long process to win approval and then develop the site.

When it arrives, the replacement rehearsal space will be a welcome relief for musicians struggling to navigate the increasingly few rehearsal spaces across Boston. At the present, trends that threatened small musicians’ presence in Allston at the time of the Sound Museum’s closure have only grown, with rents rising and developers snapping up old properties across the area for more lucrative uses like luxury apartments.

Vengrove, who is a founding member of the Charlestown Rehearsal Studios Tenants Association, has worked to mobilize musicians and city officials to save other rehearsal spaces under threat of closure, like 50 Terminal St. in Charlestown.

“They have a history of closing, and once they close, it’s really hard to get that sort of place to reopen again,” Vengrove said. “So in our situation, we're actually very lucky in that our team was able to save the spaces.”

Olivia A. “Liv” Doyon, a Brighton-based tattooist who does outreach to local artists, also reflected on the challenges facing musicians in the neighborhood.

“Things have changed a lot in Allston. There are less spaces for weird people, less third spaces,” Doyon said.

—Staff writer Angelina J. Parker can be reached at angelina.parker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinajparker.

—Staff writer Emily T. Schwartz can be reached at emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @EmilySchwartz37.