Sullivan Square housing project

KentXie

KentXie

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Magic Johnson to develop housing in Charlestown
Monday, July 10, 2006

Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund, a joint venture that includes former basketball star Magic Johnson, said today it will develop "work force housing" near the Sullivan Square MBTA station in Charlestown.

The firm said that this will be the Canyon-Johnson's first investment in Boston and that it will partner with a local firm, Cathartes Private Investments, to build a project with 146 loft-style condos. If all goes according to plan, the first residents could move in in early 2008, the firms said.

Johnson said in a statement, "I'm excited about investing in the Boston area, where I have some of my greatest memories."

"This project fits perfectly with my new 'Leading the Way II' plan to provide 10,000 new units of housing, and particularly affordable housing, for Bostonians," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a statement.
 
Interesting. I'd like to know its exact location. Sullivan Square's potential is limited by the highway cutting through it. But there is potential.
 
Location of Magic Lofts

I believe these are the Little Neck Lofts, at 48-56 Brighton Street, in Charlestown. BRA site has very little on it.
 
I wonder what are they going to build on the footprint of where the highway bridge used to be. It's a pretty large parcel that can be support residential projects if the highway wasn't there. Maybe commercial development can work there.
 
That is a really neglected and isolated part of the city. It would be much better off if it were part of Somerville.
 
I don't think so because if you cross over to Somerville a little to the north toward Assembly Square, you can see that there isn't that much of an improvement. I just think it's because the area is home to many bus depot including the MBTA and the BPS buses and its pretty industrial area of Boston. Changes can easily take place hopefully since a few residential project has spawned nearby like those housing projects that went up about 5 years ago at the meeting point between Medford St., Bunker Hill St., and Main St. This new development can be similar.
 
I'm talking specifically about the two or three residential blocks east of the city line, sandwiched between I-93, Broadway, and Washington Street. This area is connected to Somerville but disconnected from the rest of Charlestown.
 
Magic scoring in Hub with Charlestown condo plan
By Jerry Kronenberg
Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson is giving Boston a little ?home-court advantage,? unveiling plans to build affordable housing in his archrival Celtics? backyard.

?With all my fights with Larry Bird and all of my battles with the Celtics, it?s perfect to go back and invest (in Boston),? said Johnson, who?s gotten involved in real estate since hanging up his basketball sneakers in 1996.

The hoop star?s for-profit Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund invests in condos, malls and other developments in underprivileged areas.

The $900 million fund plans to team up with Boston-based Cathartes Private Investments to build 146 units in Charlestown?s Sullivan Square, virtually a three-point shot from the old Boston Garden site.

Plans call for selling 15 low-income units for $182,000 each, as well as 131 market-rate condos for $330,000 apiece.

?Boston is a place where you probably can?t get a condo for under $500,000,? Johnson said in a phone interview from his firm?s Los Angeles headquarters. ?So for us to come in with a market rate of about $330,000 . . . I think we?re saying to the city and its residents: ?Hey, here?s an opportunity for you to (buy a place) for less than $400,000.? ?

The as-yet-unnamed development represents Johnson?s first real estate foray into Boston.

However, his firm is also currently competing against two other developers for the right to revamp an 8-acre Roxbury parcel the city plans to soon sell off.

Johnson concedes the Sullivan Square project?s future residents will probably root for the Celtics instead of the Lakers, but said he doesn?t mind.

?I know Boston is Larry Bird?s city and the Celtics? city and always will be,? the basketball legend said. ?But I think because we had so many great battles, (Bostonians) respect me and what the Lakers were trying to do. We had a lot of good times and a lot of bad times playing there - and now with this development, there?ll be nothing but good times again.?
 
Canyon-Johnson invests in first Boston project
Boston Business Journal - 4:21 PM EDT Tuesday

The Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds LP has invested in its first Boston project, joining with Cathartes Private Investments to finance the development of 146 condominiums.

The urban real estate fund is building workforce housing at a former industrial site next to the Sullivan Square MBTA station in Charlestown, Mass. The fund is a major investor in the project.

The units, to be constructed on the 1.9 acre site, are geared toward meeting the needs of an ethnically diverse area where there is a lack of affordable and market rate housing. The first residents are expected to be able to move in during the first quarter of 2008. Demolition work is expected to begin immediately.

The units will be loft-style homes with garage parking on the same level as units. Other amenities include a public courtyard, a media and communications room and a fitness center.

Canyon-Johnson has assembled a development team including Boston-based general contractor John Moriarty and Associates Inc. and Boston-based architecture firm Bargmann Hendrie and Archetype Inc. The Collaborative Cos. will be marketing the project.

Co-founded by Earvin "Magic" Johnson's Johnson Development Corp. and Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, the fund is based in Los Angeles and is the nation's largest real estate investment fund targeting money to urban revitalization in cities across the country. The fund has nearly $1 billion in committed equity capital providing the potential to facilitate more than $4 billion in development and revitalization in major metropolitan areas nationwide.

Boston-based Cathartes Private Investments was founded in 2003 by Jim Goldenberg and Jeff Johnston who, together since 1992, have developed over five million square feet of residential and commercial real estate. CPI has developed more than 40 urban revitalization projects over the last 14 years.
 
DarkFenX said:
I just think it's because the area is home to many bus depot including the MBTA and the BPS buses and its pretty industrial area of Boston.
Click to expand...

There's a bus depot and some industrialish stuff off Washington St towards Forest Hills in JP, but the surrounding area coexists just fine. Sure, these things are not beautiful, except in a dark, post-industrial urban wasteland sort of way (perhaps I have strange aesthetics, as I generally prefer this to flowers), but cross the street and it's as if they weren't even there. Of course, that part of JP is probably a much more functional neighborhood than the Sullivan area, which I'm less familiar with.

...Was that a correct use of the word "aesthetics"?
 
The Herald said:
BRA wary of Magic bid
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - Updated: 07:55 AM EST

Former Lakers basketball great Earvin ?Magic? Johnson may have had a hot hand on the court, but he is getting a cool reception at City Hall for his proposed Roxbury mega-development.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority is threatening to put a key development site in Roxbury out to bid again, saying a group of local developers backed by Johnson?s $900 million investment fund came up short in offering enough cash.
The move bucks a preliminary decision by a community panel that recommended awarding the site and the lease to the group backed by the Canyon Johnson Urban Fund. The group?s Heritage Common proposal calls for a hotel, a large jazz club, offices and residential units at the corner or Whittier and Tremont streets.
Yet, despite the concerns raised by city officials, the chairman of the community committee overseeing the bidding came out against any move to restart the now two-year-old vetting process.
?I think we are categorically against going back to square one,? said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and panel chairman.
?That is not what we consider a viable option.?
Still, City Hall?s development arm contends the Johnson-backed group offered to pay $1.25 a square foot per year, when the minimum bid was $3 a square foot. The two other main bidders also came up short, and offered even less money, said one executive familiar with the process.
Whether the nearly 9-acre site is worth that amount - roughly $1.5 million a year on a 500,000 square-foot project - has been the subject of some debate among developers and the community.
Another option City Hall is exploring is to have all three bidders resubmit new financial offers, giving Johnson?s group and its rivals another chance to meet the requirements.
Williams, the chairman of the community committee, said he could support that option.
Click to expand...
Link

And as an added bit of fun, here is a picticure of Scottie, in case you were wondering what he looks like.
van_voorhis.jpg
 
Why aren't they just selling the land?

Am I correct in what I read here? The city (BRA) is leasing the land to the group?

Why is the BRA still going to be the landlord? Why aren't they selling the land?

That steams me.
 
I thought I'd revive this thread from 5 years ago and ask why, if "everyone" (from private to the Feds) can afford to build very fancy TOD and a whole new station at Assembly Row/Square, how come nobody can afford to build anything nice at Sullivan Square? Man, even though it is 1 stop closer in, why does it look so bombed-out?
 
Arlington said:
I thought I'd revive this thread from 5 years ago and ask why, if "everyone" (from private to the Feds) can afford to build very fancy TOD and a whole new station at Assembly Row/Square, how come nobody can afford to build anything nice at Sullivan Square? Man, even though it is 1 stop closer in, why does it look so bombed-out?
Click to expand...

Because the BRA's suffocating clutches don't extend beyond this sign?

Ent-Smvl-older.jpg


That might be a little over-simplistic an explanation, but the political cat-herding required to make things happen is definitely a lot simpler, more transparent, and less zero-sum (in the "some neighborhood's gonna win some, so some neighborhood's gotta lose some" vein) in Somerville vs. in Boston.

There's been some nice spiffing up of the sliver of C-town west of 93/tracks, but as noted before in the thread that's functionally an East Somerville annex that C-town proper has rejected as its own. I used to live on Perkins St. several years ago (pre-condo construction) and suspected there was some sort of implicit longstanding provincial statement being made about having to--either direction you chose--cross back inside Somerville-proper and go under a particularly gross section of 93 to reach this here Orange Line platform I was staring directly at on the entire tranquil walk down the hill.
 
I served on the Comprehensive Plan committee in Somerville, and got them to include an explicit request for a Sullivan Square T entrance from Perkins Street. But all we can do is ask, as that part of Perkins isn't in Somerville.
 
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