South End Infill and Small Developments

"They should really do something with that building." <<< Me, driving by on my way to Northeastern, 1986.
 
wut.

Quinzani’s Bakery in the South End to close, sell building
By Katie Johnston, Boston Globe

Quinzani’s Bakery, which has been supplying bread to hundreds of Boston businesses for almost a century, is selling its South End building and closing next week, the latest industrial site to vacate the rapidly gentrifying part of the neighborhood where the Massachusetts Turnpike meets the Southeast Expressway.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Rob-Roy Quinzani, a descendant of the Italian immigrant brothers who opened the business in 1919. “There’s presently no one in the fourth generation to hand it down to.”

The Harrison Street building is under agreement, Quinzani said, but he declined to identify the buyer. The company employs about 90 workers.

It’s a familiar story amid the city’s development boom: a blue-collar business shuts down as a gritty neighborhood goes upscale, paving the way for investors to put up a luxury residence or high-end retail buildings.

This corner of the South End still has plenty of grit: Roughly 500 homeless people reside at the Pine Street Inn, a shelter across the street from the bakery. The Ho Kong Bean Sprout Co. next door is still in business.

But the once-largely industrial neighborhood has become one of the city’s hottest real estate markets, due in part to new zoning guidelines that allow buildings as tall as 200 feet. A block from Quinzani’s, the new Ink Block complex features a Whole Foods, a luxury condo building, and 315 apartments renting for up to $6,000 a month. The Ink Block developer just launched sales at Siena, with condos selling for as much as $2 million.

Behind Quinzani’s, the new Troy Boston apartment building, with gas fireplaces and leather couches in the lobby, is largely full. And more projects are in the works, including an 11-story office and retail building and a 602-unit apartment building.

All these changes don’t concern Bob Wells, a member of the Old Dover Neighborhood Association and a resident since 1992. Wells, 72, has seen the area evolve from a land of “weeds and drug dealers” into a thriving neighborhood with galleries, markets, and, best of all, people.

“Things are going to develop, that’s good, as long as they develop in the right direction,” he said.

Quinzani’s first opened as a pastry shop in theold Combat Zone downtown and moved to its current location at 380 Harrison Ave. about 50 years ago. The business grew from one horse-drawn delivery wagon to a fleet of trucks operating on five delivery routes around Greater Boston and 30 independent distributors covering New England, according to its website.

The wholesaler serves 800 clients in all, including caterers, delis, restaurants, and food service companies.

Quinzani’s may have even been responsible for a once-common tradition at local Chinese restaurants: serving dinner rolls with the meals. In the mid 1990s, the Globe reported that more than 200 Chinese restaurant owners from as far away as Tewksbury descended on Quinzani’s every morning to pick up baguettes and rolls. According to the story, the relationship started when the Quinzani brothers opened a pastry shop on LaGrange Street and convinced Chinese restaurant owners nearby that they should serve bread in their restaurants — an American staple that would make diners more comfortable.

Calise & Sons Bakery of Lincoln, R.I., will take over Quinzani’s business and will make most of the bakery’s products in conjunction with Piantedosi Baking Co. in Malden.

Blunch, the South End spot that serves pressed sandwiches with gourmet ingredients such as goat cheese and basil cashew pesto, has been serving Quinzani’s bread for seven years. Owner Nikki Christo Leo said she will miss not only the Quinzani family, but their proximity. “When I run out of bread mid-rush, they won’t be down the street for me to go and retrieve it.”

For Quinzani’s workers, however, the transition will be more difficult.

Tan Guan, 61, has worked at the bakery for 15 years, the last four as a baker on the night shift making $13.89 an hour, with paid holidays and three weeks of vacation. Guan is getting a severance package, a half-week of pay for every year of service, but is worried about finding a new job.

“It’s going to be really hard for me to look for work,” he said in Chinese through a translator on Friday. “I’m over 60 years old.”

The Quinzanis said in a statement that they are working with the state office of Labor and Workforce Development to help find work for their “loyal and assiduous employees.”

“We’re doing the best we can do for them,” said Rob-Roy Quinzani, who co-owns the business with his brother Stephen and cousin Larry.

Quinzani declined to comment on how the bakery’s closing fits into the changing face of the neighborhood. “I don’t want to look like I’m selling out and walking away,” he said.
Click to expand...

Tim Logan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Katie Johnston can be reached at katie.johnston@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @ktkjohnston.
 
John - how large is the building footprint being sold?
 
This is sad, I feel bad for the employees and it sucks to lose a local bakery with that type of tradition
 
Remember that while these businesses might be "pushed out" because of rising land values and redevelopment, many more people were affected when the residential neighborhood was torn down for a few factories. Urban "renewal". Ok.
 
sm89 said:
Remember that while these businesses might be "pushed out" because of rising land values and redevelopment, many more people were affected when the residential neighborhood was torn down for a few factories. Urban "renewal". Ok.
Click to expand...

Also, this business was not exactly "pushed out". The family "sold out" or perhaps "cashed in" because no one in the current generation wanted to move forward with the business.

The factory could easily have relocated instead, particularly given land values there on Harrison right now.
 
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The two Quinzani's lots, 370 and 380 Harrison Ave (not street, as the article says) add up to around 32,000-square feet. Troy Boston, on the other side of the block, is on a 55,000-square foot lot.

Certainly large enough for a tower. I think Kensington is on a *30,000-square foot lot.
 
Looks like you just missed me, BeeLine- just spent a few minutes trying to find myself in your photos. It really was quite busy down there- definitely an exciting place to be.
 
Not sure if there's an individual thread for this, but the Renbrandt building (6 Parmelee Street/659 Mass Ave) has started being being cleared out over the past few days
 
Oh, btw, in case it wasn't mentioned previously, the 46 Wareham project is now all commercial; no residential included. It was approved as such, last week, by the BRA.
 
John - what's the deal with 46 Wareham switching to all commercial? I was pretty surprised to see this myself
 
I was looking for updates to the Bunker Hill redevelopment and saw that the Boston Housing Authority issued an RFP to rehab 146 units of affordable housing in rowhouses on West Newton and Rutland Streets.

Here's the link, responses are due in October: https://www.bostonhousing.org/en/News/BHA-seeks-proposals-to-revitalize-the-West-Newton.aspx

The Boston Housing Authority (“BHA”) invites qualified real estate development firms (each a
“Proposer”) to submit proposals for the revitalization/renovation of its West Newton/Rutland
public housing units. The West Newton/Rutland development comprise 146 units of federally
subsidized public housing in 24 historical brick townhouses in the South End Landmarks District
of Boston. The disposition will be subject to approval by the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD)
Click to expand...
 
Five of the 33 units at 136 Shawmut (the church) have been listed with prices in the $715 - $1,100 per square foot range. That seems logical given the prices over at Ink Block.

The project is called "The Lucas" for some reason, maybe a religious reason, maybe David Goldman's boyfriend's name?

The listing says, "Completion Winter '16" which is obv. a misprint - it's going to be Winter '17 unless somehow God can make construction workers move faster, no?
 
Update: Related also in contract on purchase of Quinzani's Bakery.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...3ISvhsqf2YPypVyROgEO/story.html?event=event25

BOOM. Question is, will this be market-rate or affordable?

BTW, Traveler Storage behind this building has drawn up plans to expand - adding another 8-story building next to the current one. I found the info in an agreement signed between Troy Boston and the storage owners who didn't want anything to affect their respective projects.
 
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