A development team’s proposal for the MassDOT parcel 25 would respond to the red-hot market for life science space in Boston with MassDOT’s goals for affordability and inclusion. Image courtesy of MassDOT
Boston Chinatown’s working-class housing stock eroded over the decades amid encroachment from highway projects and the development of Tufts Medical Center and luxury apartment and condo towers.
Now, a pair of proposals would generate a combined 328 affordable apartments and condominiums, as state and local officials seek to address the affordable housing crisis through surplus property dispositions. On a parallel path, two community organizations are pursuing acquisitions of rowhouses and apartment buildings to preserve remnants of affordability.
Asian Community Development Corp. is proposing 110 income-restricted condos on a parking lot off Hudson Street, in a project that would also reestablish the neighborhood’s first library branch since the 1950s. ACDC previously completed a 51-unit affordable condo project at 88 Hudson St. in 2017.
“It was precisely because of the success of that project that people in the neighborhood wanted to see more affordable condo opportunities,” said Angie Liou, executive director of the CDC. “Any sort of [housing cost] relief that we heard about during the pandemic was really temporary.”
A partnership of two New York developers, Peebles Corp. and Genesis Cos., proposes another 84 affordable apartments as part of a mixed-use development on a former Big Dig parcel owned by Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The agency asked developers seeking to lease parcel 25 to include a substantial affordable housing component along with a diverse project team structure.
To meet the housing goal, the MassDOT-selected development team of Peebles Corp. and Genesis Cos. proposes a 20-story residential and life science tower on the property, located next to the southern exit of the O’Neill Tunnel.
The project would include 309,300 square feet of lab space and 218 apartments, 40 percent of which would be income-restricted.
“It’s an arbitrary number [of housing units], but it’s a benchmark and it had to be a meaningful component,” said Mark Rosenshein, whose Boston-based consulting firm Trademark Partners is working with the Peebles-Genesis team. “It ended up at 218 and it felt like the right density to do a great residential project.”
Another development team, BioMed Realty, had proposed a larger all-life science project that would have delivered an estimated $8 million in linkage payments to the city for affordable housing creation and workforce training. Peebles-Genesis and four other respondents opted for the on-site housing component, which has been encouraged by city officials in recent years.
A Vertical Stack for Housing and Labs
Tight development sites like the half-acre parcel 25 pose unique challenges for developers. Amid the continuing life science construction boom, developers are exploring new ways to make lab space coexist with housing, said Mark Rosensheim, whose Boston-based consulting firm Trademark Partners is working with the development team. The proposed building design is unusual in that it combines life science uses on the lower floors with residences above.
“A lot of us are looking at how to combine residential and lab buildings in mixed use,” Rosenshein said. “The more common scenario is side-by-side, but across the country and in Boston, people are starting to look at how you can vertically stack them.”
The Peebles-Genesis team also opted to include the optional air rights portion of the site. A 24,600-square-foot parcel over the tunnel portal would be capped to provide new open space and landscaping, and push vehicle emissions and noise further from the property.
A different type of hybrid tower could rise on a Chinatown parking lot, where ACDC is proposing an all-affordable apartment and condo and project.
The Boston Planning & Development Agency is reviewing the potential disposition of the 18,714-square-foot parcel at 48-58 Tyler and 49-63 Hudson St., which is leased to Tufts Shared Services through Dec. 31.
ACDC’s efforts to develop a larger 168-unit project on the BPDA’s parcel P-12C at 290 Tremont St. in Chinatown recently fell through. The project would have originally received $51 million in off-site affordable housing payments from Millennium Partners, developer of the Winthrop Center office-condo tower, but ACDC’s designation for parcel P-12C expired in December.
The latest project, currently undergoing a community review process, includes 66 apartments reserved for households earning 30 to 80 percent of area median income, and 44 condos for households earning 80 to 100 percent of AMI.
A proposed 168-unit affordable housing project on a city-owned parcel at 290 Tremont St. in Chinatown would have benefited from $51 million in linkage fees from the Winthrop Center tower, before the developer’s designation expired in December. Image courtesy of DREAM Collaborative
Rising Interest in Acquisition
On a parallel track, ACDC and a community land trust are seeking to buy existing residential properties to preserve remaining pockets of affordability. Chinatown’s proximity to downtown Boston and transit has prompted landlords and new investors to convert rowhouses into short-term rentals, siphoning away from existing housing stock.
In a neighborhood first, ACDC last month won a bidding war to acquire a 14-unit apartment building at 64-68 Beach St. with plans to maintain affordability for the existing residences. The property had been in local family ownership for decades, but hit the market this winter.
With a subsidy from the Mayor’s Office of Housing, ACDC outbid private developers and plans to renovate the units while stabilizing rents.
The strategy, sometimes known in community development circles as naturally occurring affordable housing, focuses on acquisitions of properties that still offer below-market rents without formal income restrictions.
Steve Adams
“It’s a different strategy than new construction, but it’s going in and trying to pursue the tenancy of the existing residents, commercial spaces included, to make sure the folks can stay there,” ACDC’s Liou said.
The Chinatown Community Land Trust, a nonprofit founded in 2015 to fight Chinatown displacement, made its first acquisitions last summer, also with city housing funds’ assistance. The two rowhouses at 20 Oak St. and 95 Hudson St. contain 11 apartments, which are being marketed as condos with affordability deed restrictions. Three have sold so far at prices ranging from $167,000 to $230,000.
“The location is unbeatable in terms of access to the city, so there’s a lot of competition to upgrade the units and turn them into condos,” said Lydia Lowe, director of the land trust. “It’s a strategy, but it’s a pretty competitive market and the land trust has to pay top dollar.”
