The public review process has begun for a proposal to transform the area surrounding Boston’s Jackson Square MBTA station into a vibrant neighborhood with new housing, retail stores and office space.

iAfter seven years of community planning, a proposal to transform the area surrounding the Jackson Square MBTA station in Boston into a vibrant neighborhood with a mix of housing and retail and office space took a leap forward recently with the beginning of the public review process.

Final plans to redevelop about 11 acres in Jackson Square into 429 housing units and 67,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, along with a community center and indoor recreational facility, were submitted last month by a development team that includes two nonprofit community development corporations. The Boston Redevelopment Authority began its public review process two weeks ago.

“There a lot of people who said this is just a pipe dream – this is never going to happen. But I think that people are seeing that this thing is picking up momentum,” said Richard Thal, executive director of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp., which is part of the development team known as Jackson Square Partners.

The latest developments come after years of planning by the community and the city to revitalize an area that is seen as a gateway to Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood and the Fort Hill section of Roxbury. The $225 million project has been held up as a prime example of an opportunity to create a transit-oriented community because it is located along the MBTA’s Orange Line and involves the development of publicly owned parcels.

“What the community has always wanted is something to be done with Jackson Square. This project has been so long in the visioning,” said Adam Burrows, who has lived in Jamaica Plain for almost 20 years and has served on the neighborhood council.

Burrows said Jackson Square currently serves as funnel for auto traffic from Center, Amory, Columbus and Lamartine streets.

“It’s a scar now. It looks awful. It’s a desolate wasteland,” said Burrows, who was part of the Jackson Coordinating Group, which was established by the city in 1999 to oversee a planning initiative for the area. “What you have on Columbus Avenue approaching Jackson Square is a six-lane highway which ends abruptly. People want a real gateway.”

The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp. has teamed up with Urban Edge, another nonprofit community-based development group, the Hyde Square Task Force, and for-profit developers Mitchell Partners and Gravestar Inc. to make the community’s vision a reality.

Plans call for the creation of a mix of more than 400 rental and homeownership units. Thal said there will be about 270 rental units and 159 ownership units, and more than half of the total homes will be affordable.

“It’s really going to be a mix of very low-income, low-income and moderate-income units. It will be quite a mix of different housing types,” he said.

When the developers began formulating more specific plans for the area two years ago, there didn’t appear to be a huge market for market-rate rental housing, according to Thal, and the development team was considering including more for-sale homes in the mix.

“There’s more demand for market-rate rentals right now than there was a few years ago,” he said.

Burrows said residents have expressed concerns about including tenants and homeowners with a mix of incomes in order to create a stable community. “There’s a recognition that we need to develop affordable housing, but there’s also a need for middle-income housing,” he said.

‘A Mix of Uses’
Concerns about parking and traffic flow also have been shared. But a key unknown is the fate of about 2 acres of land that are part of the redevelopment plan. The development team currently doesn’t control those 2 acres, which includes a site with an NSTAR substation on the southwest corner of Centre Street and Columbus Avenue. A building with ground-floor retail and housing on the upper floors is planned for that particular site, but it is likely to be built in the last phase of the project, according to Mossik Hacobian, executive director of Urban Edge.

Another parcel in question is land off Ritchie Street that is controlled by the city’s Department of Public Works. Property behind the site is owned by Urban Edge. A salt storage shed is currently on a portion of the DPW land, and will have to be relocated to make the development work.

A building with 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 40 condos that is planned at the corner of Ritchie Street and Columbus Avenue on the DPW site will be part of the first phase of development, explained Hacobian. Another part of the DPW land would feature an indoor recreational facility, which will be built at a later phase.

“The DPW site uses up 3 acres. It doesn’t need 3 acres. We have proposed to reconfigure the site to use less land without disrupting DPW operations,” said Hacobian, who added that the development team has talked with the head of the DPW about receiving rights to develop the land.

“For as long as we’ve been working on this plan, we have been clear that any development of this scale would require the relocation or reconfiguration of the NSTAR station and the Department of Public Works site,” Hacobian said.

Burrows acknowledged that those parcels could be an obstacle to moving forward with the development.

The first phase of the project – expected to break ground in the spring of 2008 – will involve three components, including the construction of a 20,000-square-foot youth and family center on a grassy triangle area next to the MBTA station at the northern corner of Centre Street and Columbus Avenue. At the back of the site will be a mixed-use building with up to 100 housing units and ground-floor retail space.

Also included in the first phase is incubator retail space, which will be located on a piece of land near the train station that is currently owned by the MBTA, as well as the mixed-use building with the condos and ground-floor retail at the corner of Ritchie Street and Columbus Avenue.

The youth and family center has been called a critical component of the Jackson Square redevelopment. There long has been a crying need for some type of center for the area’s youth, according to community leaders. Local youth have participated in the planning process for redeveloping Jackson Square and have pushed for a facility that will serve their needs.

“Our neighborhood currently doesn’t have any full YMCA or Boys and Girls Club or any other place to offer these kids the necessary out-of-school space for educational, recreational and cultural activities,” said Claudio Martinez, executive director of the Hyde Square Task Force, an organization that has provided programs and activities for neighborhood youth for the last 15 years.

The Hyde Square Task Force is planning to operate the youth and family center, where health-related, cultural and job and economic development programs and activities will be offered. Community leaders say that the center is even more critical given recent reports of gang violence in the area. Just last week, a 20-year-old man who had been identified as a former gang leader in the area was buried.

“This latest violence continues to highlight the need for more funding, for more spaces and for more jobs for young people in our city,” said Martinez. “Sadly, this once again makes our case strong for the need for this type of facility.”

Martinez said that youth involvement in planning the redevelopment has been extraordinary. “We hope that the youth participation in the Jackson Square process becomes a precedent for other development processes in the city and the state because we feel that unfortunately a lot of these things happen without the participation of young people and the results are not what they could be,” he said.

Another important component of the project is the retail space that will be created. Currently, the area running along Columbus Avenue toward Washington Street lacks shops and restaurants.

“There’s a goal to create a mix of uses that provide both neighborhood services as well as vibrancy,” said John Civilinski of Cambridge-based Gravestar. “I think one of the opportunities here is that you have the strength of the Hyde and Jackson districts Â… You have the lack of services as you leave the T and head down Columbus Avenue toward Washington Street.”

Gravestar has experience creating neighborhood shopping centers, including the Porter Square shopping center along the MBTA’s Red Line.

The retail space will infuse the area with jobs, and community leaders have voiced their desire over the years that local residents benefit from the employment opportunities offered by the redevelopment.

“People want to make sure there are many opportunities for local entrepreneurs and that there are opportunities for local folks to get construction jobs and some of the more permanent jobs that will result,” Thal said.

The BRA is accepting public comments on the redevelopment proposal through Jan. 5.