Developer Interest Grows in Downtown Chelsea

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Developer Interest Grows in Downtown Chelsea
By Beverly Ford


CHELSEA, MA - On Winnisimmet Street in Downtown, Capitol Construction of Boston has started demolishing four buildings to make way for an 18,000-sf, three-story, $1.8-million project that in eight months will be home to a new Cinco de Mayo Mexican restaurant. Nearby, at Fourth Street and Broadway, a CVS store with underground parking and two stories of residential units is under construction. Just down the street, a former office and residential building is being turned into apartments.

The development surge that has been under way in most Bay State cities for years is finally hitting Downtown Chelsea and city officials couldn?t be happier. ?In the next few years, we expect to see the half-mile renaissance,? Josh Monahan, a projects coordinator for the city, tells GlobeSt.com, referring to the half mile stretch of storefront businesses that make up Downtown.

Long ignored by developers, Chelsea has gained renewed interest recently because of its prime location just across the Tobin Bridge from Boston and its relatively cheap, by comparison, real estate prices.

?Chelsea is like a diamond in the rough,? Don Harney, executive director with the Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, tells GlobeSt.com. ?It?s really a very vibrant location.?

At just 1.8 square miles, Chelsea is the state?s smallest city and one of its poorest with a per capita income of $14,628. About 23.3% of its population lives below the poverty line. But with prime waterfront acreage overlooking the Boston harbor, a bustling commercial district and a location closer to Downtown Boston than some of that city?s neighborhoods, developers are taking note.

Sam McClain, president and CEO of Capital Construction, is one of the pioneers of Chelsea?s revitalization. His project at 139-143 Winnisimmet St. will take out an empty lot ?and a couple of ugly buildings? and replace them with a modern edifice that will mark the gateway to the city?s center. ?Projects like this will help revitalize some nightlife down there,? McClain tells GlobeSt.com.

City officials are hoping it will too. Monahan says recent development interest in Chelsea is spurring businesses and city officials to work together to create a plan that will outline the future of Downtown.



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Commuter rail from Chelsea should shuttle back and forth to North Station at 10-15 minute intervals. Since virtually everyone would continue on Green or Orange Line, you'd get the equivalent of a free transfer by not collecting a fare on the train, just on the subway. Outbound, conductor could start checking tickets after Chelsea on trains going beyond.

Wealthy lawyer-philanthropist Theodore Kheel is funding a study in New York that may suggest that free transit more than pays for itself if you look broadly enough at its economic effects. This may be an idea whose time has come.
 
Chelsea Gets $100M Eco-Friendly Project
By Beverly Ford


CHELSEA, MA - A $100-million ecologically friendly mixed-use project is bringing residents, businesses and nature back to a once contaminated factory site on the Chelsea waterfront. The site, once home to a nine-building printing plant, was contaminated with oil, ink and debris that was killing off birds and fish along its shoreline when Urban Design & Development bought the property in 2004.

Today, after several million dollars in remediation work, including the planting of saltgrass along the tidelands, the heron and egrets are returning and the salt bass that spawn along Mill Creek and the Chelsea River can be seen jumping offshore. By the summer of 2008, the site will also be home to an eclectic mix of environmentally conscious residents.

?It?s been somewhat inspiring,? James Bill, who heads up Urban Design?s sales and marketing team, tells GlobeSt.com.

The biggest change, however, will come in just over a year when the Somerville architectural and development firm, a specialist in brownfield redevelopment, wraps up construction on the first phase of Forbes Park. The mixed-use project will eventually put 350 residential units and about 20,000 sf of office and retail space on a small plot of land off Chelsea?s shore.

Some of the old factory buildings have been demolished to create courtyards for the complex and a freshwater canal system will connect the others. The buildings will be outfitted with ecologically friendly systems, including an electricity-generating turbine and passive heating and cooling systems, that will make the complex almost entirely self-sufficient.

?Everything we build or add has an element of sustainability,? says Bill, noting that the building?s brick and beam interior will feature thermal mass construction to keep the building warm in winter and cool in summer. Specially designed windows will create ?air scoops? to cool the summer heat even further without the need for air conditioning.

Aside from its environmental construction, the complex, whose studio one- and two-bedroom units will sell from $250,000 to $400,000, will also offer environmentally friendly transportation via a fleet of electric cars, all powered with free electricity provided by the on-site turbine. A ride-sharing program and shuttle bus to a nearby MBTA station will also be offered and Bill says a water-taxi to take residents to downtown Boston is under consideration.

To help finance the units, Bill says Urban Design will partner with New England Moves and Mass Housing to offer ?green mortgages? that allow buyers to qualify for mortgages by counting income that would have normally gone to utility payments.

With environmentally friendly buildings and financing, the project is already gaining interest among buyers, Bill says. So far, he notes, 10 of the first 64 units have been pre-sold.



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From industrial to desirable: rebuilding Chelsea

CHELSEA - Dozens of construction workers in hard hats are putting the finishing touches on a sprawling condominium complex in an area known as the Box District, adding a splash of color to a neighborhood long overshadowed by a massive red-brick factory that blew litter onto lawns and choked residential streets with traffic.

more stories like this"If you look around now, you see all the new homes being built. . . . It's really beautiful," said Ingrid Garcia, who, after renting in Chelsea for 19 years, is scheduled to move into a newly constructed, three-bedroom house on Liberty Street, just off Broadway near the downtown area.

The Box District is one of several neighborhoods that city officials are focusing on in their attempts to transform the 1.8-square-mile city into a residential community and make it a top choice for young couples, single professionals, and others seeking to live minutes from downtown Boston.

Chelsea was a significant player in an industrial revolution decades ago, and bulky factories were built in modest neighborhoods as a convenience for workers, but when the wheels of the revolution fell off, the factories closed down.

The city also fell into a fiscal crisis that led to state receivership in 1991. After regaining its financial autonomy in 1995, city administrators embarked on an ambitious plan that focused on attracting new residents and businesses to boost the tax base, allowing the city to better its schools, add police officers, and offer improved city services.

Planners scoured the city 12 years ago, looking for "industrial-residential conflict," City Manager Jay Ash said. They identified five neighborhoods, including the Box District, where factories were located next to homes. The Standard Box Co., from which the neighborhood derives its name, closed after a fire in the mid-1990s. The company, located on Gerrish Avenue, made cardboard boxes.

The city began acquiring the factories with a plan to turn them into residential units that would blend into the neighborhoods, boosting the housing stock and removing eyesores. Standard Box will be transformed into lofts next year. And, in homage to the neighborhood's past, decorative street lights with boxes at the base will be installed.

"This truly represents the future direction of the city," Ash said recently during a telephone interview.

Public and private developers are on pace to build at least 1,500 new houses and apartments by 2010 in the five neighborhoods. With 12,000 existing units, the new units would represent an almost 13 percent increase to Chelsea's housing stock.

Earlier this month, Ash cut the ribbon on the Box District's new developments as state and local officials applauded and new homeowners beamed. In the coming days, Ash is scheduled to attend another ground-breaking ceremony, this time for a 160-unit development near Admiral's Hill.Ann Houston, executive director of Chelsea Neighborhood Developers, which is overseeing several construction projects, said, "The changes are really dramatic. Chelsea is just a fascinating city that is just coming into its own."

more stories like thisIn 1997, the city began a series of major developments, utilizing faded factory buildings, as part of the Everett Avenue Urban Renewal District. Three components of that renewal plan - a hotel, a biotech company, and a Stop & Shop Supermarket - have been built. City planners are waiting for state approval to build the remaining two components - another hotel and two large housing units.

Along with building new homes, the city is focusing on quality-of-life issues, relying on a web of surveillance cameras to help the police sweep out crime, particularly gang activity, drug use, and prostitution. The police force will increase from 85 to 93 officers by the end of next year, according to Captain Brian Kyes.

The city also has attempted to tackle a longstanding complaint among residents that a pelt-sorting facility and a petroleum company located on the waterfront emanate foul odors. The smells dissipated, according to some residents, after the city encouraged the companies to invest in air-filtration systems.

Chelsea operates with an annual budget of about $110 million. About $35 million of that comes from taxpayers. Ash said that when all the new construction is done and the units are filled, tax revenues should increase by about $3 million.

"The good news today is that the efforts we made over the last dozen years seem to be working," he said. "General Electric made two major property acquisitions in the last two years and could potentially finance 400 of the 1,500 units we are building. This is a company that could invest their dollars anywhere in the world, and they're saying Chelsea."

The latest census figures put the city's population at roughly 35,000, of which one in three residents are foreign born.

Garcia, an immigrant from Guatemala, said she expects to move into her new home in January.

"It's so exciting, a new year and a new home," she said.

http://www.boston.com/realestate/ne...trial_to_desirable_rebuilding_chelsea/?page=2
 
12345 said:
The Box District is one of several neighborhoods that city officials are focusing on in their attempts to transform the 1.8-square-mile city into a residential community and make it a top choice for young couples, single professionals, and others seeking to live minutes from downtown Boston.
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A prime target for gentrification inexplicably overlooked these many years.

The dangers: timidly conceived projects, an excess of "planning," NIMBY influence, failure to capitalize on the considerable potential, over-reliance on cars if rail transit not beefed up.
 
Connected to downtown Boston only by bus; you can't walk from Chelsea to Boston. I think that makes gentrification difficult.
 
Elvis agrees:

Oh no it does not move me
Even though I've seen the movie
I don't want to check your pulse
I don't want nobody else
I don't want to go to Chelsea
Click to expand...
 
The area between Route 1, the Chelsea Creek and the railroad tracks is as urban as anything outside of central Boston, and more compact than anything you'll find in Somerville and Cambridge. The lack of a subway station doesn't help, but there is a commuter rail station on the system's most frequent line, and the #111 bus is the MBTA's most frequent. Professionals have found the parts of Southie out past L Street to be attractive, even though the walk to Broadway station is about the same as the walk to Maverick from Chelsea, and the frequency of bus connections to downtown is not as good as from Chelsea.

I think Boston gentrifiers are just not as attracted to gritty areas as their counterparts in other cities like New York. People here seem to be more likely to move to progressively less urban and less convenient areas when they get priced out their target areas (like moving out from Davis to Ball Sq or Teale Sq; or moving out from JP to Roslindale) than they are to take a chance in a more urban environment that is more convenient to downtown (Chelsea or Eastie).
 
^You may be on to something--I am still surprised to walk around Eagle Hill or Jeffries Point (less than 10 minutes from the Maverick station, and another 5 minutes to Aquarium) and see brownstones that could easily be at home in the South End selling for under $250,000.
 
It all takes time to reverse a long term trend of the middleclass moving out of an area

When I was an undergraduate at MIT, in the early 1970's, you could buy a nice {but in need of lots of renovation} stone or brick front house in the South End -- that today goes for $500 K and up per condo unit {say 4 per house?}

for

drum roll please...


$5,000

I nearly did buy there twice -- but was convinced by my relatives that as opposed to solidly lower middle class east Cambridge -- that the South End was crime infested and headed further down

Oh well so much for my fortune in real estate

About 15 years ago I saw similar prices for Chelsea as it was then considered an Economic Basket Case and headed down

Westy
 
I also think investing in Union Sq. in Somerville, and around Revere Beach are guarenteed money makers. Although both are not dirt cheap, I think both will be big bucks areas in the future. Also I think we need to be carefull about how much of Boston we gentrify. Making areas safer is one thing, making them starbucks-approved yuppievilles that drive out lower income people is potentially dangerous.
 
Living in Chelsea, I've seen a good amount of construction recently. Does any one have any updates or know where I can send some?
 
I can't say I've noticed, but I must say I am not surprised to hear it. I mean, the 111 bus alone runs express from Chelsea to Haymarket at rapid transit headways (or better, compared to some MBTA lines). On top of that, you have busses up the wazoo to the Blue Line and to Wellington. Not to mention it looks like Silver Line to Chelsea is a definite, with a good amount of steam coming. It is also a city slated for Urban Ring service when/if that day comes.
 
whighlander said:
drum roll please...

$5,000
Click to expand...

This is how I became a wealthy man even excluding the money I married into.

Of course the end of rent control and doing nearly all the renovations myself helped.
 
Honest question.

How confident were you that the South End was going to turn around when you bought in? Were there indicators that you saw or was it a complete gamble?

If it was the former do you see any depressed areas that might be on that track today?
 
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statler said:
Honest question.

How confident were you that the South End was going to turn around when you bought in? Were there indicators that you saw or was it a complete gamble?

If it was the former do you see any depressed areas that be on the track today?
Click to expand...

Chelsea??? Has a shot.
 
I actually saw some stats, Chelsea does not have a lot of crime. All it will take is a some adventurous yuppies/ upper middle class and you can get a relatively rapid turn around and a healthy mixed income community. I think what is primarily holding it back, I think, is the transit hole (for rapid transit but bus connections are good) as well as just being on the other side of the bridge- East Boston syndrome. ;)
 
choo said:
I actually saw some stats, Chelsea does not have a lot of crime. All it will take is a some adventurous yuppies/ upper middle class and you can get a relatively rapid turn around and a healthy mixed income community. I think what is primarily holding it back, I think, is the transit hole (for rapid transit but bus connections are good) as well as just being on the other side of the bridge- East Boston syndrome. ;)
Click to expand...

Chelsea downtown has the Bone Structure of the old Brownstone Rowe. The Downtown is very unique and I think alot of Brazilians which provides a very clean & unique culture (a very good thing) living in the area.

#1 Has Views like E.Boston towards the City
#2 Nice long-stretch of Mom & pop unique retail stores
#3 Close to the city

Negatives:
Not connected to the Hardrails.
Lots of negative industrial views
Traffic sucks getting in and out of chelsea

Not sure if chelsea is going to take off. I think it depends on E.Boston Maverick Square area prices which has gotten better each year. This would push interest towards Chelsea

Real Estate values might be still be overpriced in the area but supply seems to be dwindling in the most attractive areas to live in, so Chelsea is back on the radar.

The real question is what happens if the Fed ever raises Interest rates? Do all these home values coming crashing down?
 
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statler said:
Honest question.

How confident were you that the South End was going to turn around when you bought in? Were there indicators that you saw or was it a complete gamble?

If it was the former do you see any depressed areas that might be on that track today?
Click to expand...

I didn't know the South End was going to turn around. It was what I could afford when I decided to stop renting. Bought one townhouse to live in and started renovating it after work each day. Quickly realized it was enjoyable and that maybe I could be a landlord. Real estate was dirt cheap and my labor was free. Skimmed some left over materials off work I was doing elsewhere. Each building became a hobby and a business.

There are fringe areas of Cambridge, Somerville, Roxbury (adjacent JP), Brighton (closer to Brookline), which are relatively cheaper and have potential. Nothing I see as exponential as the South End was, except maybe along the Green Line extensions.

Rent control going away allowed urban properties which were artificially undervalued in a reverse real estate bubble to resume normal market pricing. I don't think we will ever see a positive valuation correction of that magnitude ever again.
 
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