The Boston Housing Authority’s 62-year-old Whittier Street complex in Roxbury is slated to be replaced by a mixed-income development with market-rate apartments and condos as well as replacement public housing and moderate-income units.
The approximately ?$148 million, 386-unit project aims to enliven the Tremont Street area, provide momentum for future projects at nearby Madison Park Village and better connect the area to the Dudley Square business district, according to Preservation of Affordable Housing Inc.
“This is a really critical location in the city,” said Cory Mian, POAH’s vice president of real estate development. “It’s an opportunity to develop a site that can be mixed-income in nature and also replace the existing 200 (public) units.”
The Boston nonprofit is tackling the project with Madison Park Development Corp. under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods program, which links improvements to distressed public or HUD-assisted housing with community programs and services. They have applied for a $30 million Choice grant to help fund the project.
“It’s a really good candidate … because Choice Neighborhoods looks at projects that can really help tip or transform a neighborhood,” said BHA deputy administrator Kate Bennett. “In conjunction with some of the other things happening around lower Roxbury, it’s really the type of neighborhood revitalization that HUD is looking for.”
The 200-unit, four-building Whittier Street public housing is physically distressed, with an expensive list of capital needs and no funding on the horizon. Taking its place would be a 14-story Tremont Street building with a 10-story wing, with 241 housing units and 7,680 square feet of commercial space. Two new five-story buildings would have a combined 145 townhomes and flats.
Some of the subsidized, low-income public housing units would be replaced off site in two new buildings with 76 units at the nearby Madison Park Village on Melnea Cass Boulevard, under a separate $36 million project by Madison Park Development. “That’s part of the whole Choice Neighborhood program — you de-concentrate the poverty on the site,” Mian said.
Whittier Street residents would be temporarily relocated during construction to other BHA sites or private apartments with Section 8 vouchers. “Once we’re done (construction), they can come back,” Bennett said.