A rendering by Boston-based Stull & Lee Inc. of the 25-story residential and commercial tower proposed by Long Bay Management for Roxbury’s Dudley Square.
Developers Kenneth and Cecil Guscott retired 10 years ago after more than three decades in the Boston real estate industry and sold their company to its employees. The current real estate boom in Boston – and its potential to transform urban neighborhoods such as Roxbury – brought them back with an agenda to build the neighborhood’s tallest structure.
“Now we’ve come back out because we want to do a special job for the community,” Kenneth Guscott said. “We’re hoping to bring the working-class people back in the district, and that will help the commercial stores come back [too].”
The Guscotts’ Long Bay Management Co. is seeking investors and public incentives as it prepares to submit plans for a $190-million, 25-story tower in the heart of Dudley Square. Containing more than 100 apartments and up to 100,000 square feet of commercial space, the project is a chance to reverse decades of decline characterized by the departure of middle-class residents and commercial tenants, Guscott said.
Guscott, a 90-year-old World War II veteran, is no stranger to large-scale development projects in Boston. He was co-manager of Columbia Plaza Assoc., a group of minority developers that were responsible for the construction of One Lincoln St. The speculative office tower was completed in 2003 in a joint venture with John Hynes III’s Gale International.
For the Dudley Square project, Guscott has assembled an all-African-American development group for the initial stages of the project: an example, he said, to young residents about the importance of homegrown neighborhood revitalization. Other members include architects Stull & Lee Inc., Jainey Construction Management & Consulting, financial adviser Tom Welch and Beverley Johnson, president of the Massachusetts Minority Contractors Association.
As apartment towers and mixed-use projects rise throughout downtown Boston, Dudley Square has seen a recent uptick in development activity of its own. But in contrast to the predominantly high-rent residential projects being built elsewhere, Guscott is planning workforce housing for people whose incomes are too high to qualify for subsidized housing, but don’t make enough to buy a house or condo. That market niche will require a generous helping of public incentives to put together a viable financing package.
One avenue, Guscott said, is tax credits from the state’s Economic Development Incentive Program. Long Bay also is in talks with the city’s Department of Neighborhood Assistance about acquiring city-owned properties in the neighborhood at a deep discount to build affordable townhouses, since no affordable units are planned on-site. The city’s inclusionary development policy requires residential developers to support construction of affordable units equal to 15 percent of the overall project total.
The tower would be built on a parcel currently occupied by three commercial buildings containing offices, a OneUnited Bank branch and a food market. Guscott has owned the project site since the 1970s: it covers 90 percent of the block bounded by Shawmut Avenue, Washington Street, Roxbury Street and Marvin Street.
But the lack of acquisition costs does little to mitigate the project expenses.
“First we have to show the city and the state what we need to make this project work,” Guscott said. “A lot of people don’t understand the construction costs are the same whether you building this project on the waterfront or in Dudley Square. You pay the union electricians downtown the same as you pay in Roxbury.”
Guscott said the group expects to file a formal application with the Boston Redevelopment Authority later this year with the goal of final approval by March 2016.
Bolling Building Brings New Daytime Population
The Dudley Square tower project comes as Roxbury sees progress on various developments driven by a mix of private investment, city-led redevelopment and nonprofits increasing their local presence.
In early July, Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership (MBHP) signed a purchase-and-sale agreement that will enable it to relocate from 125 Lincoln St. in Chinatown to Roxbury Crossing. The estimated $13.5-million project is a partnership between the nonprofit housing assistance group and Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services, which is redeveloping the long-vacant parcel formerly owned by the MBTA. Plans call for a $138-million mixed-use development including totaling 305,750 square feet including 88 apartments, retail space and offices over the next five years.
Chris Norris, executive director of MBHP, said the relocation was prompted by a desire to escape rising office rents in the downtown area. Since 2002, the agency’s annual rent has doubled from the original $400,000. The new offices, which will serve 155 employees, is closer to the group’s 6,000 clients, with 65 percent living within a 3-mile radius, Norris said.
In Dudley Square, April’s relocation of the Boston school department headquarters to the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building has brought 500 employees to the neighborhood every weekday. The $124-million reconstruction of the former Ferdinand Furniture building also includes 3,000 square feet of business incubator space and a pizza shop started by the owners of the Haley House Bakery Café, scheduled to open in August.
Kathy Kottaridis, executive director of Historic Boston Inc., has seen a “night and day” difference since the organization moved to Dudley Square from Downtown Crossing in 2011.
“The Bolling Building put a stake in the middle of the neighborhood and suggested how close Roxbury is to the rest of the city,” Kottaridis said. “The market of the South End has been pushing south and is right at the gateway.”
And with that comes the flipside of revitalization, Kottaridis said: longtime commercial tenants say they’re having trouble renewing leases as landlords hold out for higher-end tenants.
“It’s important to make sure that Roxbury doesn’t get priced out of its own neighborhood,” she said.
More Parcels In Play
Boston-based developer Urbanica Design is awaiting final BRA approval to become preferred developer of parcel 9 at Washington Street and Melnea Cass Boulevard, where it proposes a 108-room hotel and up to 50 residential units. Community activists have sought guarantees that the hotel will accommodate union workers and living wages, delaying a vote by the BRA board of directors.
But final approval could be closer as the developers appear to be reaching a compromise with activists and City Councilor Tito Jackson.
“We were waiting to get more support from the elected officials and were holding back a little for a greater community benefit,” said Hugues Monestime, a senior planner for the BRA.
Across the street on parcel 10, construction of a 44,000-square-foot Tropical Foods store was completed in May as part of a relocation and expansion for the neighborhood grocer. Madison Park Development Corp. is overseeing the next two phases of the project, which could include conversion of the former Tropical Foods building into housing and retail and construction of a new 59,000-square-foot commercial building.
And then there’s the untapped potential of the 7-acre parcel 3 on Tremont Street, which the BRA has owned since 1967. P-3 Partners LLC has been the designated developer since 2011, and floated plans for a $300-million mixed-use development topping 1.6 million square feet. Proposals to build offices for Partners HealthCare and the state Department of Transportation failed to reach fruition in recent years. Partners HealthCare opted for Assembly Row in Somerville, and Gov. Charlie Baker recently dropped plans for the MassDOT relocation that emerged from the Deval Patrick administration.
In the wake of the latest setback, the BRA is anxious to find another way to activate the parcel, Director Brian Golden said.
“It’s a difficult site, and the economics there make a massive development more difficult to pull off,” he said. “A lot of these projects really are tricky, and we need to spend more time and effort jump-starting these.”
