Photo by Steve Adams | Banker & Tradesman Staff
Waltham officials supported rezoning two BXP-owned office parks to allow multifamily housing, but Mayor Jeannette McCarthy vetoed a third citing its location far from transit and close to existing homes.
The rejected rezoning would have applied to the Bay Colony office park, located on Winter Street at the Lincoln town line. The rezonings could clear the way for 1,103 multifamily housing units on 135 acres and 10 parcels along Winter Street, according to a traffic study submitted in February by VHB.
McCarthy balked at the plans for apartments at BXP’s Bay Colony office park, citing insufficient parking requirements, its distance from public transit and proximity to existing homes.
“[The Bay Colony office park rezoning] and its subdistricts have no access to public transportation, bus or rail. Why then is [Bay Colony] included and given the same benefits as [1265 Main St. and Waltham-Weston Corporate Center] when there is no transit-oriented development benefit?” McCarthy wrote in a July 1 letter to the City Council provided to Banker & Tradesman.
McCarthy also cited safety issues adding thousands of vehicle trips to Winter Street, which is a no-salt zone because of its proximity to the Cambridge reservoir. The issue was raised in by urban planning consultants CommunityScale in an independent study of the proposal commissioned by the City Council.
Last month, Waltham City Councilors approved plans to create a new mixed-use overlay district at three of BXP’s properties: the Waltham Weston Corporate Center on Jones Road near the Weston town line, another on undeveloped portions of the 1265 Main St. property east of Route 128. BXP owns a 50 percent share of the 1265 Main St. property.
The council previously supported a cap of 2,000 housing units across the three new districts, the Waltham Times reported. Individual buildings would be subject to separate approvals.
A conceptual master plan shows a mixture of apartment buildings and townhouse-style buildings built on the Winter Street site, located on a bluff overlooking the Cambridge Reservoir.
The rezoning also allows small-scale commercial projects such as office, retail and restaurants.
A conceptual master plan for a housing-focused redevelopment of Waltham’s Bay Colony office park. Image courtesy of BXP and The Architectural Team
Suburban office markets have shown few signs of significantly reducing double-digit vacancies, prompting developers to propose multifamily housing at office parks in Brookline, Burlington, Lexington and Quincy.
The 152 million-square-foot Route 128 office market had a vacancy rate of 20.3 percent and availability rate of 24.2 percent at midyear, according to a research report by Avison Young.
BXP, the nation’s largest publicly-traded office REIT, is seeking to maximize the value of non-core office properties that have suffered declining occupancy in the post-COVID hybrid work era.
After breaking ground on a 312-unit apartment complex in Lexington’s Hartwell Avenue office park in 2025, BXP proposed a similar redevelopment at the properties in Waltham.
According to BXP’s most recent quarterly report, the 435,917-square-foot Bay Colony Corporate Center is 79.7 percent leased.
The 301,611-square-foot Waltham-Weston Corporate Center, located on Jones Road in Waltham near the Weston line, is 73 percent leased, according to the first-quarter financial report.
BXP has proposed a new MBTA commuter rail station on Jones Road, replacing the Kendal Green station in Weston on the Fitchburg line.
