| Expect much of the buzz in the Fenway this spring to be generated not by the local Major League ballclub’s prospects, but the breakneck pace of the neighborhood’s commercial and residential development.
Boston-based Samuels & Assoc., the company that’s been most responsible for changing the fabric and street scene of the Fenway in the last decade, is nearing completion of its 550,000-square-foot Van Ness mixed-use development, while simultaneously preparing to kick off a radical refresh of the Landmark Center.
But right now it’s Samuels’ revised plans for The Point – a 30-story residential tower proposed for the corner of Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue – that are touching on all the hot-button arguments in the city’s development picture.
How much affordable housing is enough, and where? How many luxury apartments and million-dollar condos can the city absorb? What density and height is appropriate on the edge of an urban parkland? And how will Mayor Martin Walsh’s Boston Redevelopment Authority come down on this?
A Change Of Plans
Samuels originally proposed a 22-story apartment tower for the 0.6-acre property, which was identified as a “gateway” site where taller buildings are encouraged when the city rezoned the West Fenway neighborhood in 2004.
The new zoning was the culmination of a seven-year community review which ultimately endorsed a mix of housing, retail and offices for the next generation of development. Developers betting on the city’s next hot neighborhood acquired parking lots, repair shops and aging commercial buildings with an eye on building master-planned projects including name-brand retailers, trendy restaurants and multifamily towers. Samuels’ completion of the Fenway Triangle Trilogy and 1330 Boylston St. – containing more than 600 luxury apartments – appeared to bear out the neighborhood’s gentrification potential.
The BRA approved the original Point plans in 2013. In December, Samuels became the latest developer to signal a revival of the city’s condo development market at the expense of the recent luxury apartment boom.
In place of the 22-story tower, Samuels came back to the board with plans for a 30-story building, adding nearly 91,000 square feet of residential space and 30 more units, for a total of 240 apartments and 109 condos.
“The financing market for condos is much stronger, and also from the construction standpoint, we’ve seen spikes in costs,” said Peter Sougarides, a Samuels principal.
The changes – which also would cut the retail component in half, to 20,500 square feet – have stirred up opposition from neighborhood groups and affordable housing advocates.
The original plan included an agreement that Samuels make 15 percent of the units available to qualified affordable tenants. Samuels now says it will negotiate a payment to the city’s community benefits fund while possibly providing up to 10 percent affordable units on-site.
The reduction would further strain home affordability in the Fenway, where there are no vacancies in the neighborhood’s allotment of affordable units, the Fenway Community Development Corp. stated in a letter to the BRA last month. The group asked the agency to require Samuels to provide the original 15 percent allocation on-site. Allowing developers to pay for generation of affordable units outside of impacted neighborhoods “is arguably realigning city neighborhoods along socio-economic, racial and ethnic lines,” Interim Executive Director Wendy Nicholas wrote.
The Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association, which had supported the original Point project, objected to the proposal based upon the height increase and changes in building design. It also criticized the reduction of retail space and affordable units.
“At 30 stories and 340 feet it will stand almost double the height of the tallest building in the neighborhood, nearby Trilogy,” the association’s board members wrote.
The BRA board of directors is expected to vote on the project as soon as its next meeting Feb. 26.
Office Space Up For Grabs
Meanwhile, two other Samuels projects are reshaping the neighborhood’s office market. The mixed-use Van Ness project at 1325 Boylston St., with one-bedroom apartments beginning in the low $3,000 range, will contain 237,000 square feet of office space built on speculation. Samuels is in negotiations with Cambridge tech companies for some of the Elkus Manfredi Architects-designed space, offering lower rents for new office construction than available in Kendall Square or Boston’s Seaport District, Sougarides said.
Samuels plans to redevelop the Landmark Center by demolishing a 380,000-square-foot parking garage and building up to 550 residential units and 180,000-square-feet of new retail, including a Wegmans supermarket.
The departure this summer of Blue Cross Blue Shield will open up another 380,000 square feet of office space in the Landmark Center, providing the impetus for a gut renovation of the former Sears warehouse built in 1929.
“The Fenway has always had office space, but there’s never been any significant vacancy recently, and it’s always had a Longwood Medical flavor to it,” Sougarides said. “We’re talking to a lot of other types of technology companies that would appreciate the live, work and play environment the Fenway offers.”
Email: sadams@thewarregroup.com
