Image courtesy of RODE Architects and OJB Landscape Architecture
A proposed hotel-residential development on Soldiers Field Road is back for further review after changes designed to boost the supply of affordable and family-sized housing units in Allston.
Approximately one-third of the 528 apartments and condominiums in the 1234 Soldiers Field Road project will be two- and three-bedroom units, including 47 income-restricted units.
The Davis Cos. is proposing four buildings spanning 582,000 square feet at the Studio Allston Hotel and former Skating Club of Boston properties. The project, originally proposed in late 2020, has been revised during a series of meetings with an impact advisory group to the Boston Planning & Development Agency.
The latest version calls for four buildings replacing the skating rink and hotel:
- An 18-story, 380-unit Soldiers Field Road apartment tower;
- A 72-unit residential building on Telford Street, including 55 affordable apartments and 17 affordable condominiums;
- An 11-story, 195-room hotel on Western Avenue;
- And a 76-unit condo building on Soldiers Field Road.
Developers have responded to demands from anti-displacement activists for a larger component of affordable and family-sized units in several recent projects in Boston, including Harvard Allston Land Co.’s Enterprise Research Campus. Harvard and its private development partner, Tishman Speyer, agreed to include 25-percent affordable units in the project’s 263,500-square-foot housing component.
Allston has one of the city’s highest percentages of renters at 75 percent, but only 42 percent of the neighborhood’s 3,200 households are families, according to U.S. Census data.
The project includes 69,000 square feet of open space, a new driveway between Western Avenue and Soldiers Field Road and protected bike lanes, and 20,000 square feet of amenity terraces for residents and hotel guests. It’s designed to enable the replacement of the existing Telford Street pedestrian bridge which connects to the Charles River reservation, a project which would be completed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
The Davis Cos. is partnering with Allston Brighton Community Development Corp. and The Community Builders on the Telford affordable housing building.
A BPDA public comment period on the updated plans runs through Dec. 23.
