NEI Transforms Dorm into Affordable Housing

 

Bethany Apartments

Boston – NEI General Contracting has completed its fourth project for the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, Inc. (POUA), a nonprofit housing developer affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

NEI oversaw the historic adaptive re-use of the 56,000sf Kennedy Hall at Cardinal Cushing Center in Hanover into 37 affordable and workforce housing units, which is now known as Bethany Apartments.

Project team members include general contractor NEI General Contracting; architect The Architectural Team (TAT); civil engineer and landscape architect Horsley Witten Group; mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protecting (MEP/FP) engineer Wozny Barbar & Associates.

The center has supported children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities through education, employment training, residential care, and other services since the late 1940s. Constructed in 1957 as a dormitory, Kennedy Hall has been converted into 37 spacious units with a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units.

The design preserved the historic envelope of the three-story H-shaped brick building and maintained the existing structure. Interior historic features underwent careful restoration. The chapel was converted into an open community room with 15-foot ceilings, while other spaces were converted into a resident lounge, fitness center, quiet reading room, offices, and additional resident amenities.

Established in 1969 by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston under the leadership of Monsignor Michael F. Groden and Cardinal Cushing, POUA is a non-profit social justice ministry that strives to create vibrant communities through the development of high quality affordable and mixed income housing, where people of modest means can live with dignity and respect in homes they can afford.

POUA has developed nearly 3,000 units of affordable and mixed-income housing, providing homes for more than 11,000 people and is becoming one of the most productive non-profit housing developers in the region.