Great Scott
photo via @sometimes_kush

closed MA club Great Scott found a potential new location

Despite a successful crowdfunding campaign, long-running Allston, MA venue Great Scott, which announced its closure in May, won’t be able to reopen in its former location of 1222 Commonwealth Ave, its home since 1976. There is some encouraging news about the venue’s future, however; Boston.com reports that they are hoping to take over the space that once housed Regina Pizzeria, at 353 Cambridge Ave in Allston.

In an update on the venue’s Mainvest campaign page, longtime booker Carl Lavin, who acquired rights to Great Scott’s intellectual property and liquor license, wrote:

For all of those who have invested in saving an Allston institution, thank you for your support and patience as we worked to explore all viable paths forward.

We have located the perfect location to relocate the Great Scott amidst the craziness of 2020. I’m proud to say that we’ve entered into negotiations with the landlord of the former location of Pizzeria Regina and Arcand Associates, the owners of the location, whose roots and passion for Allston have proven undeniable over the years.

Additionally, we’ve been working with a well-known locally-owned pizzeria to partner on the location so that Great Scott will be able to work to reopen as a loyal Allstonian hub for the arts and watering hole and before Phase 4 of reopening, to help secure our long-term success.

If you’re already an investor in Great Scott, you should be getting an email asking you to reconfirm your investment from MainVest in the next 24 hours – We appreciate your support so far and would love for you to continue on this journey with us, for all of Allston.

Red Tree Real Estate, who were responsible for renting 1222 Commonwealth Ave for its owners, Oak Hill Properties, had told Lavin that Oak Hill “don’t want to have a rock club,” and a lawyer for Oak Hill told Lavin that they were moving ahead with another prospective tenant. “There is still no timeline as to when Massachusetts will lift the shutdown for bars/music venues,” the lawyer wrote, “therefore Great Scott would have to pay rent for many months without generating any revenue.”