The Hawthorne's new arts venue opens on a 22-month clock

← All news · September 6, 2026

The Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts opened Sept. 5 in the town-owned former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea. It is a bridge tenant with a hard June 30, 2028 lease end, while the town's long-term RFP now has to account for an operating bar and stage.

The town-owned former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea now has an operating arts venue inside it before Swampscott has decided the property’s permanent future.

The Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts opened Saturday, Sept. 5, at 141–149 Humphrey St. Its lease ends June 30, 2028, about 22 months after opening night. The town is still preparing the long-term RFP meant to decide what comes next for the site, and that process now has to account for a tenant running a bar, stage and live-event business in the building.

The venue is a bridge tenant, not a permanent answer. The town owns the building. The operator runs it under a lease of about $10,000 a month. The Tides’ opening-night description, “owned and operated by Johnny Ray,” blurred that line: the building is the town’s. The operator is John Nicastro, who does business as Johnny Ray and is the licensee of record; prior coverage established that the two names are one person. His partner is named Richard Messinger in the Marblehead Current’s Aug. 19 profile and “Richard Messenger” in the Tides; this account uses the Current’s spelling.

The lease ends in June 2028

Town Meeting authorized the lease at a Special Town Meeting on Dec. 1, 2025. It was the night’s only contested article. Article 10 passed, but not unanimously, after about 75 minutes of debate. The Hawthorne Reuse Advisory Committee opposed it 10–0, with two members absent. Its chair, retired architect Brian Watson, called a temporary lease “nearly a blank check” and listed the building’s problems: a failing roof, a cracked east wall, standing water in the electrical room, a rotting deck and dying HVAC. The warrant first read a Sept. 30, 2028 end date; a yellow floor handout corrected it to June 30, 2028.

The outgoing Select Board approved the lease 5–0 on April 27, 2026. The minutes record it as “roughly $260,000 over the term” at about $10,000 a month, on a triple-net basis. The tenant pays the taxes, about $150,000, and the utilities. The recorded total does not reconcile cleanly with the clock: $10,000 across 26 months yields $260,000, but the December authorization was described as “up to 30 months,” and the doors only opened in September 2026, leaving about 22 months to the June 2028 end. The figures do not collapse into a single number; the recorded total is what the minutes state.

One clause makes the lease fragile by design. Under §7.3, the tenant may walk away if a single extraordinary repair exceeds $30,000. Then-member Danielle Leonard objected on the record. A contractor, she said, could go into that building and find $30,000 in necessary repairs without trouble. She then voted for the lease anyway. Against Watson’s decay inventory, a $30,000 escape hatch is not a high bar.

The board chose a temporary operator

The board awarded the reuse RFP to the performing-arts center on March 4, 2026, choosing it over a seasonal food-truck bid called “Limited Time Only,” by a vote of 4–1. David Grishman cast the lone no. Per prior coverage, he preferred to go straight to demolition and redevelopment rather than seat a temporary tenant, though the March 4 minutes record only his vote, not his reasons.

On the financing, the record moved during the meeting. An earlier addendum had referenced a “$1 million financing commitment to support redevelopment and activation.” Follow-up materials showed about $600,000 in first-year capital spending, and the operator clarified at the meeting that he was “not investing $1M in the building itself.” That is the extent of what the minutes establish about the tenant’s money; they do not support any conclusion beyond it.

The venue then cleared its licenses in sequence: a common-victualler license on June 3, a liquor license 5–0 on June 8, and an entertainment license on June 17. The entertainment license passed on the third try, after two deferrals over neighbors’ noise concerns, subject to sound-mitigation and crowd conditions. Leonard, who had flagged the §7.3 risk in April and raised noise concerns in June, also moved the approvals forward. At the June 17 meeting, Mary Ellen Fletcher held the operator to his sound-containment pledge; “Johnny Ray responded, ‘Absolutely.’”

In late June, the tenant tested the lease’s edges. The center posted paid-parking signs: $5 on weekdays, $10 on weekends and $40 for July 3, with the revenue billed as funding “entertainment and community outreach.” Town Administrator Nick Connors pushed back: “It’s something that by both our agreement and by zoning is not an acceptable use of the property.” By June 27, the center had posted that the lot would “become private parking again.” No lease amendment and no formal enforcement action appear on the record; the episode is sourced to the Tides’ July 7 report and the administrator’s quoted position.

The long-term RFP is still open

The opening does not settle the site’s future. That depends on a separate long-term RFP, which the board has targeted for release this fall and has already begun to shape. On Aug. 4, the board voted 3–2 to eliminate residential use from the RFP framing. All five members said housing does not belong at the site. The split was over whether to ban it outright or leave it in as a scored-down option, and the hard ban won. The tally was Fletcher, Leonard and Wayne Spritz in favor; Ted Dooley and Chair Katie Phelan opposed. It comes from the Item’s reporting and should be treated as press-attested until the town posts official minutes. It was a vote to shape the RFP, not a vote on the RFP, which staff have yet to write and will bring back for at least two more public rounds.

Also still in view is the church-owned St. John’s parking lot at 187 Humphrey St., next door, which the board has discussed in executive session since the spring and plans the site around without naming in public. Whether the site can even consider housing at all traces to a 2022 choice: Town Meeting declined to bind the Hawthorne to open space when it bought the property, as this paper reported.

The RFP has to account for the venue

A leased, operating venue with a bar, a stage, live licenses and sunk fit-out now exists on the Hawthorne site. The process meant to decide the site’s permanent use is still being written, with the board wanting it out this fall. Any bidder must now price around a going concern with a June 30, 2028 exit and a $30,000 repair escape hatch, in a building the reuse committee warned is failing.

The outgoing board weighed an empty building against an imperfect tenant and chose the tenant. No town official spoke on the record at Saturday’s opening; the only voices were the operator, his guests and the first band, Fats Arnold and His Midnight Hot Dogs, playing the Flamingo Lounge and The Dory until 11:30 p.m. The operator told the room his ambition is to host national and international acts “five years from now.” The lease ends in under two.

Sources

Addendum (Sept. 10, 2026)

The town posted official Select Board minutes for July 7, July 21 and Aug. 4 overnight, each marked approved Sept. 8. Three lines bear on this piece.

Sources: data/committees/select-board/minutes-2026-07-07.md, minutes-2026-07-21.md, minutes-2026-08-04.md (official minutes, posted Sept. 9–10).