Jamaica Plain Infill and Small Developments

Not really a small development but "Hyde Square Task Force... selected Pennrose as [Church of the Blessed Sacrament's] developer for a mixed-use project, which includes much-needed affordable housing for the area and public performance spaces for artists and youth."
Of the 52 proposed new housing units, more than half will be affordable housing, the Task Force told GBH News, with 20 of units at 120% of average median income, 16 will be at 60%, 8 units at 50% and 8 at 30%.

Miranda said the board selected Pennrose due to the benefits to the neighborhood in the form of a 200-person performance space, capital support to help pay off the Task Force's property debt on the church, and consideration in the naming of the new building.

The Task Force will retain an ownership stake in the proposed 200-seat performance space, Adams confirmed.
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The performance space could be really great for local musicians etc too. I hope it is cool.

The building is beautiful. I hope they do a good job on the rehabilitation and renovation.
 
donkeybutlers said:
Not really a small development but "Hyde Square Task Force... selected Pennrose as [Church of the Blessed Sacrament's] developer for a mixed-use project, which includes much-needed affordable housing for the area and public performance spaces for artists and youth."
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While I agree with everyone on what a beautiful building this is, and would love to see it preserved if that were possible, and I have found the process with this property deeply troubling on many levels and for many years. This is been talked about on various Jamaica Plain threads; for some more detailed explanations, you can see elemenoh’s posts that do a better job than I can as he was closely involved with some of the efforts to rehab this site (speaking of which, where are you, elemenoh? Haven’t seen you in ages).

Anyway… the first problem is that essentially the original deal with the whole Blessed Sacrament site was that the rectory (a completely unremarkable late 19th century piece of shit building that should’ve just been torn down) get jacked up and moved back from Centre to allow for the current new building (at Creighton & Centre). Both the rectory and the new building, and I believe one other building, were to contain substantial numbers of new affordable and transitional housing. The church itself was going to be developed into condos at market rate, and all of the other affordable housing was going to basically be subsidized by that. Once all the affordable housing was built, certain community members threw a fit and blocked the rehabilitation of the church, basically saying they didn’t want any condos for rich people built in Hyde Square. They totally reneged, and because of that the property has sat vacant for years.

But— none of that matters anymore because we’re finally going to get this awesome project, right? Wrong, I say. And before you start reacting to what I am about to say, please know that I am someone who is very much in favor of adaptive reuse where possible and of preserving worthy buildings, and Blessed S is definitely one of those. But there is something terribly wrong with this whole process here. People need affordable housing yesterday, now, not in ten years. And we need a LOT of it. I don’t know how much money has been thrown away on this site for the initial phases of development, and I don’t know how much subsidization it’s going to cost for this white elephant of a project, butwe are talking a lot of money that could’ve been spent helping build units for people to live in, 15 years ago. I think we have a serious problem in this city and I think part of the problem comes from the level of entitled expectations and privilege experienced by a lot of people involved in these processes. There was nothing historically significant or particularly special about that rectory, first off. Does it look nice now? Yes, of course it does, and probably better than some Elkus banality (or worse) that we might’ve gotten. But that was an expensive project to save a building that was pretty mediocre, and in my opinion, the money spent would’ve done a lot better good on anything else but that. They should’ve torn it down and just built something new, and probably could’ve constructed 2-3 more units (or more) with money not frittered away on restoring dentils of that Victorian pile. This kind of stuff is happening all over the city. Why in the world was so much money poured into moving that house on Mass Ave near Porter Sq? Not everything that is old needs to be preserved. We have got to learn to let go of the past, and embrace the possibility that the future can actually build something better than the past. I understand why we as a society have a hard time accepting that given some of the turds we see built now, but clinging with our fingernails to every single structure built before 1910 because of some fixation with old buildings is the sign of deep lack of vitality in our culture. I remember being stunned at the intensity with which many JP citizens fought to try to save the old mansion on Jamaica Pond. The thing was literally falling down. Yes, it’s a nice idea, but when there are hungry mouths to feed, is this really something we can justify spending for? Come on. That is privilege gone totally out of control.
Now, we’re gonna get affordable units in the church itself, AND a performance venue! That sounds so great. Yes, if money is free and we can always rely on subsidies, for everything, that does sound awesome. However, I lived in Hyde Square (One of the best neighborhoods on the planet, in my book) long enough to know that this is not a locality that would ever justify a performance venue of moderate size. Again, I am completely in favor of the arts, and perhaps some thing on a smaller scale would be appropriate for this area, but a venue this large seems out of proportion and ridiculous and in the end, only doable with some sort of philanthropy or subsidy. Well, who cares?, you might say. As long as someone is paying for it, let’s just build it. I disagree. I think we need urgent action right now to start making sure that every possible dollar spent is actually going to helping the most number of people, right now, and when you’re talking about development, that means building affordable housing. It makes me cringe to think how much it’s going to cost to rehabilitate the church to do this, and to just imagine how much more housing could be built for people that need it today, if we could be more pragmatic and less romantic. I support saving the church if it can be saved, but within reason. This whole saga has been ridiculous, and in my opinion, emblematic of some serious fundamental problems in our local development/housing/preservation movement. At a certain point, we can’t have our cake and eat it too, and I think we need to be more humanitarian and utilitarian.

Tldr; they should’ve torn down the entire Blessed Sacrament campus and built new affordable housing 15 years ago, or, at most, razed everything but the church and made the church condos and the rest taller and newer housing.
 
armpitsOFmight said:
I am seriously skeptical this mixed-use project will happen due to a lack of funds.
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Yes, I am too. But my point is that as nice as the project sounds, there’s a better use for how much money it would cost, regardless of whether the money is there or not.
 
FK4 said:
While I agree with everyone on what a beautiful building this is, and would love to see it preserved if that were possible, and I have found the process with this property deeply troubling on many levels and for many years. This is been talked about on various Jamaica Plain threads; for some more detailed explanations, you can see elemenoh’s posts that do a better job than I can as he was closely involved with some of the efforts to rehab this site (speaking of which, where are you, elemenoh? Haven’t seen you in ages).
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This is so long overdue... glad so see some activity there.

I think everyone who was involved in the Stony Brook Cohousing effort to redevelop the building back in 2010 have since been priced out of JP and moved elsewhere (myself included).
 
elemenoh said:
This is so long overdue... glad so see some activity there.

I think everyone who was involved in the Stony Brook Cohousing effort to redevelop the building back in 2010 have since been priced out of JP and moved elsewhere (myself included).
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Nice to see you back. I moved out in 2018.
 
State to set up temporary housing for Mass/Cass homeless at Shattuck Hospital campus in Franklin Park

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https://www.universalhub.com/2021/state-set-temporary-housing-masscass-homeless
 
Neighbors Have High Hopes for Redevelopment of Arborway Yard
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"The MBTA will host a public meeting on Thursday for a proposed new bus garage on its Arborway garage site – and neighbors and advocates are drumming up support for redevelopment concepts that could also include significant amounts of transit-oriented housing, open space restoration, and social services on the site..."
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2021/12/08/neighbors-have-big-ideas-for-the-new-arborway-garage/
 
I would be upset too to find out that after years of planning the new JP/Rox zoning essentially won't be enforced
 
For context, Abundant Housing MA has been organizing pro housing voices across the Commonwealth including the City of Boston. We've been able to organize strong public support for projects threatened by suits like these and ally with other local nonprofits and city officials in it. If you send a note to that email address, our staff will take a look.
 
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