Housing planned for YWCA pool site
It's been out of use so long, you wouldn't know it if you walked by it, but the stout, bunker-like building on Temple street, behind the Bank of America on Mass. Ave., once housed a happening public pool in the middle of Central Square.
Built in 1962, and owned and operated by the Cambridge YWCA, the pool was a popular spot for women and children. But in the 1980s, when the cost of maintaining the site outpaced the revenue it brought in, the pool was drained and YWCA officials locked the doors. For the last 25 years, it has slipped into a state of disrepair; the roof leaks, the locker rooms are rusted and whatever dry spots remain are cluttered with storage.
A proposal circulating the city's Board of Zoning Appeal this summer, would change all that.
In a partnership with the Cambridge Housing Authority, the YWCA is seeking to demolish the pool site and replace it with a seven-story building. It would include 42 units of new, fully subsidized one- and two-bedroom apartments. The $71.5 million, 48,000 square-foot project would be paid for and managed by the Housing Authority. The YWCA would lease the property and use the revenue to pay for improvements to its own affordable housing stock.
"We really see this is as a win-win," said Eva Martin Blythe, executive director of the YWCA. "It makes perfectly good sense for us to partner with the Housing Authority. Their goals are consistent with our own."
This month the Board of Zoning Appeal is scheduled to discuss a permit for the project that would, if granted, allow the Housing Authority to proceed with demolition plans for the pool. On Thursday, the board will hold a public hearing at the Senior Center at 806 Mass. Ave., before making a decision. That won't be the first open meeting on the proposal. Over the last year, the Housing Authority and the YWCA have hosted a series of informal talks with neighbors, some of whom aren't entirely satisfied with the plan.
Arnold Ginsberg, owner of 727 Mass. Ave., the hulking, gothic structure on the corner of Temple Street that's better known as the Bank of America building, is one abutter who would like to see the two organizations pursue a different course. He claims the new construction would devalue his property, and has proposed that a better way to expand the city's affordable housing stock is for the Housing Authority to purchase homes that are in foreclosure, in various neighborhoods.
"Let's face it, there's a stigma about concentrated, subsidized housing," he said from his home in California, where he lives half of the year. "We shouldn't create more of it."
Ginsberg would like to see the pool site, which is adjacent to the YWCA's main facilities and single-room occupancy units, converted into a parking lot.
But Terry Dumas, director of planning and development for the Housing Authority, says the pool site is ideal for housing primarily for its proximity to MBTA stops. In fact, she said, part of the project would be funded by federal dollars that are specific to housing developed near public transportation. Also, despite some objections from neighbors, she said the project has already been endorsed by the Central Square Advisory Committee and the Central Square Business Association.
Once the Board of Zoning Appeal approves it, she said demolition could take place as soon as the fall, and construction could start next spring.
"There's certainly a need for the housing," Dumas said. The Housing Authority has 6,000 people on its waiting list for subsidized housing and about 1,200 are Cambridge residents, who would receive preference if units open up. In the last five years, Dumas said, there has been a shift in demand for smaller subsidized units, for single or elderly residents.
"This could start to address that," she said.
According to a 2003 Globe report, a 1999 proposal from the YWCA would have put market-rate housing on the pool site, but it met overwhelming opposition when brought to the public. In 2003, then-director of the YWCA Susan Smith said she told the Globe she was working with the Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development to develop an affordable housing project.
It's not clear to Martin Blythe why previous plans faltered, but she said the Housing Authority project seems to have more momentum than past initiatives, and that she is eager to see it through.
The expense of keeping the building is negligible, but the primary cost, she said, is that it's not productive to have a derelict building sitting that close to Central Square.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/20/housing_planned_for_ywca_pool_site/
At Faces club site, a big makeover eyed
The dilapidated sign bearing the name of the long-deceased disco Faces has stood at the northern gateway to Cambridge for decades. At last, a pair of local developers want to knock down the shuttered club to make way for a 240-unit apartment complex on the Route 2 site.
The developers, McKinnon Co. and Criterion Development Partners, submitted a preproposal to Cambridge in May. Richard McKinnon, head of McKinnon Co., said they will digest feedback from the public and government officials before submitting a formal proposal in late October.
"I'm very much looking to have this project under construction during the second quarter of 2009," McKinnon said.
The land is adjacent to the Alewife Reservation, a wetlands haven for wildlife and humans alike. Addressing environmental and flooding issues is a top priority, McKinnon said.
To assuage worries of increased traffic congestion on Route 2, McKinnon said the complex will encourage its residents to be less car-dependent by building a lighted path to the nearby Alewife T station and Minuteman Bikeway.
McKinnon said he isn't seeking zoning variances and is "not looking to push any limits." The "more modest" plan does not infringe on the 100-foot buffer zone separating the building and the reservation. "I'm taking the same group of people - consultants, engineers - who have already dealt precisely with these issues in this area of the city," he said.
Beth Rubenstein, assistant city manager for community development, said the Planning Board is "still in the listening stage."
"We're looking forward to more details," she said, adding that the transportation issue is of high importance.
McKinnon will meet with the North Cambridge Neighborhood Group at 7 p.m. on Wednesday to discuss the project. The meeting will be held at the Daniel F. Burns apartment building at 50 Churchill Ave
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/20/at_faces_club_site_a_big_makeover_eyed/