Southie~ D-Street Condo Development

[statler]

Apartment project is reborn as condos in a new S. Boston

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | September 8, 2006

The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a big residential project on D Street in South Boston six years ago, but it never got built. Yesterday, the board approved the project again, but you'd barely recognize it.

The location is still across D Street from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, which wasn't even built in 2000. But almost everything else is different.

There's a new owner, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. The residences were going to be apartments, 695 of them; now, they will be 585 condos in a range of buildings from six to 17 floors.

But the biggest difference is the neighborhood. There is one today, where it barely existed in September 2000.

``Over a billion dollars has been put into D Street," said Peter Palandjian, chief executive of Intercontinental. ``That attracted us to the neighborhood."

The neighborhood now includes a new building for Manulife Financial, developer Joseph F. Fallon's Park Lane Seaport residences, and a new Westin hotel at the convention center -- all along D Street. There are also new restaurants to accommodate the growing numbers of residents and workers.

``It's a lot less `pioneering' than it was two years ago," said Nicholas J. Iselin, director of development and construction for Intercontinental.

Still, the project will now move forward just as the condo market in the city is in a funk, while the apartment market is stronger. But Palandjian insisted time is on Intercontinental's side: With work scheduled to begin in spring, the condos won't be ready for two years -- enough time to ride out a down cycle.

Moreover, Palandjian said his residences, midway between old South Boston and the new waterfront neighborhood, won't be selling for the top-shelf luxury prices that housing at Fan Pier, for example, is expected to command.

He estimated one- and two-bedroom units will sell in the $500,000 and $600,000 range. ``They're luxury units for the everyman, with pricing that's much more affordable than what's out there," he said.

The new four-building complex will take up four blocks on 5.6-acres on the southeast side of the street, from 371 to 401 D Street. A largely glass tower closest to the waterfront, 401 D, will rise to 12 and 17 stories, but the three buildings closer to the existing South Boston residential blocks will be lower -- six floors, and mostly made of brick that befits local tradition.

``It really represents the flavor of the old neighborhood. It's not one monolithic block," said Vincenzo Giambertone, project designer for ADD Inc. of Cambridge, the architect.

The former owners, including Cathartes Investments, had planned an underground parking garage, which would have cost more than $20 million and had to be built up front, Palandjian said.

Intercontinental redesigned the project to put one level of parking underground and a garage above ground, hidden from view by the residences and separating them from an industrial block behind D Street.

``That kind of unlocked the economics of the deal to get it done," he said. Parking has been reduced to 724 spaces, from 778.

Link

 

[bostonman]

BRA Approves Housing Projects
By Beverly Ford Email this story | Printer-friendly | Reprints

BOSTON-The Boston Redevelopment Authority has approved two projects that will bring nearly 600 residential units to South Boston and Allston.

The larger of the projects will be built at 371-401 D St. in South Boston where locally based Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. will build 585 units, 76 of which will be affordable, on three parcels of land totaling approximately 243,195 sf. The two-phase project will create four new buildings totaling 690,000 sf with construction expected to begin in the spring of 2007. Phase 1 of the project, which encompasses 377 units, should be completed in 18 months.

In Allston, 100 new units will replace five existing one-story garage buildings on a 36,377-sf site in a largely residential neighborhood. Developed by Leggat McCall Properties, of Boston, and the Legend Group, the $40-million project will consist of a six-story building that will contain that will 39 one-bedroom and 61 two-bedroom units, eight of which will be affordable. Construction on that complex should be completed within 16 to18 months.

 

[statler]

Growing pains in Southie
Building boom brings an earful of complaints about noise

By Christine McConville, Globe Staff | October 9, 2006

Morning, noon, and night, on workdays, holidays, and weekends, the whir and grind of buzz saws echo through South Boston.

Some of the noise comes out of the old three-deckers that are being converted into fancy condominiums.

Some comes from housing complexes sprouting up on previously vacant lots.

The rest is from the new towers soaring over the neighborhood, altering the cityscape.

South Boston is having a building boom, but some residents say the construction is choking the neighborhood. And they want to push back by instituting a moratorium on new building projects.

``It's Southie, and we want it to stay Southie," said Luanne O'Connor, as she loaded a week's groceries into her car near West Broadway yesterday. ``It's such a great place to live, but it's getting overdeveloped."

O'Connor is not the only one who feels this way.

``People are fed up," said state Representative Brian P. Wallace, a Democrat. ``I get 20 calls a week for people saying, `Brian, what's going on?' "

Tomorrow, Wallace will meet with residents to discuss the building boom, and ways to stop it. He said many of his constituents want a moratorium.

``We've got 5,531 condominiums coming on line in the next couple of years," said Wallace, who has spent months researching development plans. ``The amount of development going on in the town is astronomical, and people are saying, `Enough is enough.' "

Wallace said he is not ready to push for a moratorium. But he wants to gather ideas from residents and solicit help from city leaders.

O'Connor said that at hockey games, and in the library, people tell her they simply want it all to stop, now, before Southie becomes a victim of its own success.

``We've got the beach and Castle Island, and it's so safe," she said. ``We used to have neighbors who knew each other."

South Boston has long been famously insular. Even in the 1990s, as some of the city's grittier sections became gentrified, South Boston stayed true to its working-class core.

Then the secret got out: Tight-knit, clannish Southie is a great place to live.

With its stretches of beachfront, proximity to downtown, and supply of housing that is still cheap compared with other neighborhoods, South Boston became desirable to people who wanted to live in the city, but not at Back Bay prices.

Condominiums replaced many single-family homes, and new residential buildings popped up on long-vacant lots.

And the neighborhood changed.

Last year, for the first time, half of South Boston's 22,000 registered voters were between ages 26 and 45, Wallace said.

``It used to be the elderly who were the big voting bloc ," he said.

Scott Malone , a 35-year-old business executive who grew up in South Boston, said he is amazed at the development and its impact.

``It's almost comical when you hear the prices they're asking for these condominiums," he said. ``If you grew up here, you know what they used to be."

He is concerned that pending development will flood the neighborhood's housing market to an even greater degree .

``They can't even sell what's out there now," he said.

Outside of the Stop & Shop on Broadway, Mary McQueen, a 43-year-old who has spent her life in South Boston, said that the construction has made her daily commute much longer; she's constantly being detoured.

But what really bothers her is watching the once-modest three-family houses turn into pricey condominiums.

``The elderly, the low-income people -- they are all getting pushed out, because they can't afford $400,000 for a condo," she said.

According to Wallace, more change is on the way.

In August, a developer proposed a 246-unit, townhouse-style project that would cover a sprawling block near Boston's new convention center.

Then, last month, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a plan for 585 condos on D Street.

All this activity is maddening to residents, Wallace said.

``The streets are closed, you can't go here, you can't go there," Wallace said.

Wallace said the construction-related noise begins most mornings at 7 o'clock.

Not long ago, an irate constituent called him about a work crew on Silver Street.

``I got there at 8:30 at night, and they were still working," he said.

O'Connor said that people are worried that South Boston will go the way of the North End, once an Italian-American enclave whose ethnic flare has been diminished by well-heeled newcomers.

``We don't want this to become SoBo, or South Boston," she said. ``It's Southie."

Christine McConville can be reached at cmcconville@globe.com.

Link