Condos Replace Nightclub and Shops

Reduced to mere bricks and rubble in a three alarm fire last Wednesday, the building that housed Jack's nightclub and Uncle Bunny's Incredible Edibles will not be rebuilt, residents said yesterday. Instead a condominium will be constructed in its place.

As the fire caused more than $250,000 damage, a stipulation in the lease will allow the building's owner to replace the current tenants, said Ben Eisenstat, owner of Jack's and a lessee of the building.

The contracts between the several tenants of the building and the owner stipulate that their leases will be terminated if the building is more than 50% destroyed. As a result Eisenstat and the other tenants have to search for new places to operate, the owner of the nightclub said.

"Our contract with Frank Kramer, the owner of the building, said that if the building is destroyed, the lease is over," Eisenstat said. He added that since Jack's will retain its Cambridge liquor license, he hopes to move the club to another location in the city.

Kramer could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Eisenstat said the club, a popular nightspot that regularly featured such bands as "The Incredible Casuals" and "Treat Her Right," would have had to move even if the fire had not occurred.

According to Eisenstat, Kramer--who also runs the Harvard Bookstore on Massachusetts Avenue--planned to sell the building to UNIHAB Inc., a Cambridge--based development company, once the present leases were up.

Now that they have been suddenly terminated by the fire, the building will not be redone, and the land will be used for condominiums, Eisenstat said.

Gwen Rono, a partner at UNIHAB confirmed that the company had planned to buy the building to extend its condominium developments in the area.

"We had made agreements with Frank Kramer to buy the building before the fire happened," Rono said. "We already own some of the surrounding land and are completing the second phase of our purchase of the land behind the building that burned, later this week."

Rono added that UNIHAB had originally planned to wrap the condominiums around the now burned building until the leases were over. Then, she said, the company planned to tear down the building and construct an urban park.

Now, she said, the company will probably buy the land from Kramer and begin construction of the park earlier than anticipated.

According to Cambridge Deputy Fire Chief Frank Murphy, an investigation is presently being conducted to determine the cause of the fire that presumably began in the common cellar of Uncle Bunny's.

"There is no concrete evidence about how the fire started," Murphy said. "We got a call from Uncle Bunny's, and then there were two additional alarms. If a fire is in the basement it is difficult to extinguish because of the construction."

Murphy said that because the large basement area of the building was partitioned by wooden planks, the fire spread easily and was difficult to control, "giving it extensive headway."

The fire last Wednesday is the second to ravage that part of Massachusetts Avenue in the past year.

Last May the Orson Welles theater, located across the street from the building that housed Jack's and Uncle Bunny's, burned down because of an electrical fire that began in the popcorn popper.

Operated by Cate Enterprises, the theater was closed and its landlord, Ralph Hoagland, cancelled the lease as the damages could not be repaired in the 90 days specified by the leasing contract.

According to published reports, Cate Enterprises planned to sue Hoagland to continue operation of the theater. Hoagland, however, planned to lease the renovated space to the Sharp Features Company. The theater is still closed.

Neither Hoagland nor spokesmen at Cate Enterprises were avaliablefor comment yesterday.