Developer wants to turn Seaport warehouse site into office and research space

Above: Rendering of the office and research space proposed for the site of an old warehouse and truck parking lot on Northern Avenue.Handel Architects

A long-planned project in the outer reaches of the Seaport District could soon be moving forward.

An arm of the major downtown developer Millennium Partners on Monday told city officials that it wants to build 900,000 square feet of office and research space on the site of an old warehouse and truck parking lot on Northern Avenue.

The project, led by Millennium’s Cargo Ventures affiliate, would be among the largest projects in a wave of development in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Industrial Park, but it would be smaller than the 2 million-square-foot campus Cargo Ventures once envisioned there. The more ambitious plans were scuttled last year after negotiations to relocate a neighboring seafood wholesaler fell through.

Regardless, the project highlights the demand for office space in the industrial park, where a growing number of buildings are filling up quickly, despite the Seaport’s transportation problems.

So far, the Cargo Ventures project has been perhaps best known for plans the developers floated to run aerial gondolas to and from South Station, an idea whose time appears to be past. Millennium’s brief letter to the Boston Planning & Development Agency — a precursor to city review of the project — makes no mention of gondolas.

A spokesman for the developer said the space could become home to an array of businesses, “from upstart technology companies to cutting-edge biomedical firms to innovative commercial companies.”

More details are likely to be filed with the BPDA in coming months.