The Lawn On D, the open-space community park that has hosted several events since opening last summer, including Vanyaland’s Sound Of Our Town party with the Boston Music Awards, will remain open until 2019, according to the Boston Herald.
Located on D Street between Southie and the Seapost and tucked alongside the Convention Center, the Lawn On D was created as a temporary arts and events space, making use of land to be eventually filled by convention center expansion. The space, which also hosted ticketed Bowery Boston concerts by Passion Pit and Edward Sharpe And the Magnetic Zeros this past summer, as well as Oyster Fest, has apparently lost a lot of money since its August 2014 opening.
But the plan is to stick it out for the next four years until things balance out.
From the Herald:
The Lawn on D is here to stay, despite a massive gap in funding that will have the popular South Boston destination hemorrhaging cash over the next three years, the chief strategy officer for the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority said today after briefing the MCAA’s executive committee on future plans for the space.
The Lawn on D was more than $2.3 million in the red in 2015, with $2.7 million in expenses against only $424,343 in revenue, according to data in a presentation by Johanna Storella, the chief strategy officer. She projected expenses for the lawn, which hosts a variety of events from May through October, will remain flat at $2.5 million for 2016, 2017, and 2018, but projects revenues to rise in that time – though not enough to close the gap until 2019.
“We are hoping it would be (profitable) in year four… 2019,” Storella said, adding that the costs to keep the Lawn on D running may actually go down in the next three years. “I would have put (costs) going down, but conservatively, they will be flatlined. I would never want to increase expenses.”
The Herald reports that the Lawn On D will likely lose “more than $2.1 million over the next three years,” even with revenue from corporate sponsorships, fundraising, food and beverage, and venue rental. That figure is expected to “shrink to around $254,000 in 2018, according to Storella’s estimates,” the paper writes.
Featured photo of Will Dailey by Cara DiFabio for Vanyaland