AO Flats image credit Bruce T. Martin
The Boston-area housing market is surging. Recent reporting puts vacancy rates at a 10-year low and apartment rents at the highest year-over-year jump in two decades.
This is great news for many in the real estate world, but the numbers also highlight a need for multifamily housing, and especially for more affordable and mixed-income rental apartments. For developers surveying this environment, finding ways to innovate and deliver these in-demand units may seem harder than ever before.
One promising solution is to focus on the challenging infill opportunities that many project teams avoid. In fact, by leveraging creative planning and design strategies, it is possible to turn even the most complicated sites into valuable new affordable housing assets.
As architects working with forward-looking multifamily developers across the region, our firm, The Architectural Team (TAT), is a strong proponent of this infill approach. One recent mixed-income initiative in Jamaica Plain, called A.O. Flats at Forest Hills, offers a compelling case study with useful takeaways for other project teams.
Collaboration Key to Dodging Hurdles
Led by developer The Community Builders (TCB), A.O. Flats at Forest Hills is the final project in a larger phased master plan development and activates a formerly vacant parcel once owned by the MBTA. The design program features retail space and 78 affordable and middle-income workforce housing apartments across a single 5-story, 84,658 –square-foot building.
The unit mix includes eight studios, 37 one-bedroom units, 25 two-bedroom, and eight three-bedroom homes. Amenities include a fitness room, common lounge, business hub, roof deck, dog walk, bike storage and an outdoor play area within a publicly accessible pocket park, along with retail and community space.
Fitting such an expansive program onto this tight urban site was a challenge, but the project team’s creative thinking made it possible and unlocked valuable opportunities along the way. Skillful collaboration between architects (including the project’s associate architect, Stephen Chung), engineers and contractors allowed foundations to go in without disturbing an existing retaining wall separating the property from the below-grade MBTA train lines. This also enabled the building to span over existing city-owned storm and sewer infrastructure, saving time, money and dodging several regulatory hurdles.
The project team also found advantages to building in a complex but transit-oriented location. One key benefit is the reduced need for onsite parking; in this instance, the parking-to-apartment ratio of 0.5 left additional square footage for other necessary program elements – a major win for residents and stakeholders alike.
Site Challenges Created Opportunities
From an urban design perspective, this site also presented a mix of challenges and opportunities. It was immediately apparent that the new building could provide a useful visual buffer between the train lines and the surrounding low- and mid-rise residential neighborhood; the difficulty came in adapting this design opportunity to fit the program and realities of the site.
TAT’s solution was a single structure with two distinct design characters. Along the building’s longer axis, direct entries into ground-level apartments and repetitive sawtooth bays of lap siding provide a human-scale rhythm. These were also materiality sympathetic to the adjacent
Gary M. Kane
triple-decker apartment buildings common to the neighborhood – effectively hiding the building’s scale by presenting as multiple structures. The massing then changes dramatically at the street corner, creating a larger, more formal, and public scale at the site’s busy intersection. The building fills a significant gap in the streetscape and makes the surrounding urban fabric feel cohesive, while still accommodating the development’s necessary program elements.
The Boston Planning & Development Agency’s goals for Jamaica Plain include combining smart, sustainable residential and business growth with open space conservation. A.O. Flats at Forest Hills meets all of these aims. Its eight subsidized units are set aside for formerly homeless tenants at 30 percent or less of area median income (AMI), while 32 tax credit-subsidized units are reserved for tenants below 60 percent AMI. The remaining 40 units are middle-income workforce housing for people earning up to 120 percent of AMI.
Providing high-quality, sustainable, transit-oriented housing at this formerly underused site was only possible thanks to the creative strategies of the project team. By identifying vacant parcels and making better use of existing infrastructure and urban land, we can create conditions for innovative design and development – forming a positive catalyst for transforming and engaging communities, activating formerly vacant parcels and providing much-needed affordable housing.
Gary M. Kane is a principal at The Architectural Team.
