Boston – Boston Mayor Kim Janey recently joined officials from the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), WinnCompanies, and MassHousing to formally open a $30.2 million development project that delivers 52 units of both rental and homeownership opportunities to households of all incomes along the East Boston waterfront.
The WinnDevelopment project demolished 20 units of obsolete public housing at the BHA property to build Harbor125 Apartments, offering 22 modern apartment homes for low- and extremely low-income households, and Harborwalk Residences, featuring 30 condominiums to be sold to middle-income and market-rate households.
Attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony (l-r): Andrew Colbert; Kate Bennett, Boston Housing Authority administrator; Chrystal Kornegay, MassHousing executive director; Gebregziabher Ahmed, Harbor125 resident; Mayor Janey; Gilbert Winn, WinnCompanies CEO; his son, Rand Winn; and Sheila Dillon, chief of housing for the City of Boston
The project is part of the BHA’s continuing effort to preserve, expand and modernize public housing in the city of Boston. The 22 rental apartments, built at a cost of $16 million, include one, two, three and four-bedroom units. The 30 condominiums, built at a cost of $14.2 million, provide unique home ownership opportunities, with the revenue from the sale of the 16 market-rate units helping to make the 14 remaining condos affordable for a range of incomes not otherwise being served by recent waterfront development.
Located one block from the MBTA Blue Line station at Maverick, the one-acre property provides the neighborhood with a quarter-mile view corridor to the waterfront and pedestrian access to the Harborwalk. The two-building development includes 3,384sf of ground-level retail space, a management office, a bicycle storage room, and a 1,000sf community room for use by residents and East Boston groups.
“This development fully remediated contaminated soil and building debris and raised the height of the site several feet to make the community resilient to sea level rise,’’ said Andrew Colbert, WinnDevelopment senior project director.
Cranshaw Construction of Newton served as the general contractor for the project, working off designs by The Architectural Team of Chelsea. The Harbor125 property is managed by WinnResidential, the property management arm of WinnCompanies. BRIGS, a property management company based in Boston, manages Harborwalk Residences for the homeowner’s association.
Both of the new buildings achieved LEED Gold certification through U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes (Version 4) program, including Energy Star certification and EPA’s Indoor airPLUS label for high indoor air quality. Construction for the project created 500 jobs, with minorities, women, and local workers providing 50% of labor hours.
