Boston Water and Sewer Commission development | 923-925 Harrison ave| Roxbury

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Water and Sewer lots ready for development​

City soliciting community’s ideas on four-acre site​


Isaiah Thompson

Water and Sewer lots ready for development


“The city will soon seek a developer for the parking lots at the Boston Water and Sewer Commission in Lower Roxbury. IMAGE: BPDA

It isn’t often in a city the size and density of Boston that the opportunity presents itself to re-imagine — and indeed rebuild — more than four acres of publicly-owned land in the heart of the city. But that is exactly what the sprawling parking lot along Harrison Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, currently owned by the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, represents.

In a visioning session last week, officials with the Boston Planning & Redevelopment Agency (BPDA) took public input and gave at least a preliminary sketch of their own thinking around a plan to redevelop the land into housing and commercial properties, starting next year.

The parcels in question, which now serve as a 400-space parking lot for BWSC employees and visitors, have been otherwise vacant since the 1970s, when dozens of residential and commercial properties, as well as a school, were razed during the urban renewal era.

The parcels were identified for potential redevelopment following a citywide land audit conducted last year by the Wu administration, which plans to utilize funds under the American Rescue Plan Act.
The ARPA funds are specifically designated for “building affordable housing in mixed-income communities on key properties,” said BPDA planner Rebecca Hansen.
“It’s a significant amount of area, and it provides a lot of promise in terms of, ‘What can this site be utilized for and what can be envisioned?’” said Hansen. “This is publicly-owned land, so we’re coming to [the public] before there is even a proposal in place, before there is a development team in place, to really understand what the community would like to see at this site.”

Restrictions on the use of those federal funds mean that the project must be awarded by the end of 2024 — relatively soon, in terms of major development projects — Hansen said.

Because the parcels are owned primarily by the BWSC, a quasi-governmental agency distinct from the City of Boston itself, the parcels do not fall under certain rubrics or standards for development that would automatically apply to city-owned land….”

https://www.baystatebanner.com/2023/03/22/water-and-sewer-lots-ready-for-development/

https://www.bostonplans.org/planning/planning-initiatives/boston-water-sewer-commission-parking-lots
 
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Boston Water and Sewer Commission Parking Lots Update​

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Two Development Teams Submit Proposals for BWSC Parking Lots​

Two development teams have submitted proposals for the redevelopment of the BWSC parking lots in Roxbury's Nubian Square.


Related Beal & DREAM Development
Plans call for 5 buildings to include 402 affordable and workforce housing units at various levels of affordability (both rental & homeownership units). The project would also include 5,000 square feet of retail space and 15,000 square feet of dedicated community space in addition to communal and open areas associated with the residential buildings. A ”green” square in the center of the site would serve as the critical community-centric element and tie together the new residential structures. Plans also include a new multi-modal connection between E Lenox Street and Melnea Cass Boulevard running through the center of the site and lined with smaller-scale retail providing direct access to the site’s central square of open space.

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related site plan




Beacon Communities, JGE Development, Madison Park Development Corporation
This development team aims to reimagine the former Boston Water and Sewer parking lots into a vibrant new community that they have dubbed Reed Square. This proposed name embodies the team’s vision to enhance the strong but divided fabric existing in both the Lower Roxbury and South End neighborhoods by creating a place that bridges gaps – physically, culturally, economically, and socially. Plans call for at least 383 units of affordable homeownership and rental housing units along with almost 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail and neighborhood service spaces and an outdoor green space called Reed Common for all neighbors to enjoy.

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jge 2


jge 3


https://www.bldup.com/posts/two-development-teams-submit-proposals-for-bwsc-parking-lots
 
Wonder what the possibility of seeing that school bus yard at Washington/Cass redeveloped within my lifetime is?

Regardless, this will be huge in terms of stitching the South End and Roxbury back together.
 
Wow, did Related Beal ask chatGPT to comb a list of every unimaginative development in Boston and Cambridge and recapitulate it for this? It preserves all of the super blocks, looks incredibly bland, and basically gives you four brick turds and a square of grass.

Second one by Beacon looks far better. Making some of the roads pedestrian only, good. Small retail, good. I hope these aren’t the only proposals, it would be nice if the city could get several.
 
Second is much better not least for putting the park on the interior not on busy Harrison ave. 383 units is much too few though and it's frankly ridiculous to put purely affordable housing here given how segregated Lower Roxbury is (and how unaffordable the South End is).
 
On aesthetic grounds? Something else? Purely regarding the Roxbury parking lots it seems like real benefit to have >400 new housing units, nearly all of which are affordable and which include condos and more than an acre of outdoor space. Certainly better than acres of asphalt.
 
Justbuildit said:
On aesthetic grounds? Something else? Purely regarding the Roxbury parking lots it seems like real benefit to have >400 new housing units, nearly all of which are affordable and which include condos and more than an acre of outdoor space. Certainly better than acres of asphalt.
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The proposal screams big box blandness and the other proposal looked much better. And as I commented a couple months ago, an even better proposal would have been to change the street pattern such that the blocks weren’t so enormous. Hopefully I’m wrong, hopefully it turns out well. Sure, it’s an improvement to parking lots, but that isn’t saying much and I don’t think it has much relevance for justifying bad architecture or bad urbanism.
 
The only way in which that proposal seemed better was in total housing units. From an urbanist aesthetic, the Beacon/JGE/Madison proposal was far better.
 
HenryAlan said:
The only way in which that proposal seemed better was in total housing units. From an urbanist aesthetic, the Beacon/JGE/Madison proposal was far better.
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I find it surprising and sad that a development project this large could not attract more proposals
 
FK4 said:
I find it surprising and sad that a development project this large could not attract more proposals
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This might be part of the reason they went with Related/DREAM. They have access to deeper pockets and could be more reliable in getting something out of the ground. Fewer submissions/proposals would prompt me as an owner to select the most stable looking one.
 
They should have the developer with the biggest pockets win and then just tell them to build the beacon, jge, and mpdc proposal lol..
 
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