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Image courtesy of Google Maps
Accordia Partners’ plans for a nearly 6 million square-foot development in Dorchester join a series of high-profile projects bringing large-scale multifamily units, office space and hotel rooms to the Morrissey Boulevard corridor.
Developers Kirk Sykes and Dick Galvin notified the city Thursday of plans to redevelop 34 acres including the former Bayside Expo Center property and the 2 Morrissey Blvd. parcel occupied by Santander Bank-leased office buildings.
The filing comes amid a long-anticipated building boom starts to transform the neighborhood. In January, developer David Raftery announced the first phase of a redevelopment of the former WLVI-TV studios, including 608 residential units in two buildings. Next door, Nordblom Co. is renovating the former Boston Globe headquarters into nearly 700,000 square feet of commercial space.
A New Jersey developer, The Michaels Organization, is seeking approval for a 206-unit multifamily project at the former Phillips Old Colony House restaurant property at 780 Morrissey Blvd.
And UMass-Boston is offering up a 10-acre site for development that could include research space, a hotel, retirement housing and retail space.
Studies outlining a potential growth spurt for the corridor date back more than a decade. The Columbia Point master plan envisions a mixed-use neighborhood tying together the area’s disjointed and car-dependent variety of uses, while adding parks and complete streets designs.
In a notification letter to the Boston Planning & Development Agency, Accordia Partners said it’s proposing 3.5 million square feet of mixed-use development on the former Expo Center property and another 2.4 million at 2 Morrissey Blvd. Along with the multifamily housing component, the project would add 4 million square feet of commercial office, R&D and academic space and 155,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.
The UMass Building Authority selected Accordia Partners and Ares Management in February 2019 to redevelop the former Bayside Expo property, and the developers signed a 99-year ground lease worth $235 million in June. The same developers bought the 2 Morrissey Blvd. property for $110 million last June.
