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The Boston Redevelopment Authority is hoping to issue a request for proposals by the end of the year for the long and narrow Ropewalk building in the Charlestown Navy Yard, which has been vacant for the past 32 years.
The BRA wants to ease development restrictions on the historic, 166-year-old granite building in order to attract a developer to do something with the property that, because it was previously used by the Navy to manufacture rope, has the unusual dimensions of being about a quarter-mile long and 42 feet wide.
Among the restrictions it is hoping to ease is a requirement that a 30,000-squarefoot museum must be part of any plan to develop the 110,000-square-foot building, according to BRA senior project manager Jim Gribaudo. That requirement, as well as some "stringent" design guidelines; were put in place when the BRA purchased the Navy Yard from the federal government in 1978.
The...