Multi Residential

Wardman Apt Residents Return Home

 Roxbury, MA – Urban Edge was joined  recently by officials from the City of Boston, Boston City Council, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, friends and neighbors at a ribbon cutting to welcome home the last of 24 families who were displaced from the Wardman Apartments in a damaging fire two years ago.

The homecoming event was held at 9 Waldren Rd. in Roxbury. The 88 apartments include 54 units in the block on Westminster Ave.

The new building, known as Westminster Chambers,  located along Westminster between Wardman and Waldren, was constructed with state of the art sustainability features. The building is being certified under the LEED for Homes program and is currently on the cusp of the difficult-to-achieve LEED Gold or Platinum certification.

An insurance settlement paid for repairs on 12 less severely damaged units and the demolition and replacement of the 12 that were celebrated today. Eight former resident families moved back into the 12 new apartments, starting on Nov. 1, and four new families are moving in.

The exterior and interior architect on the project was ICON architecture, inc. of Boston. Construction was done by NEI General Contracting of Randolph. Solar panels to provide hot water had been installed on the apartment complex during a major renovation that had been completed only a month or so before the fire occurred. That solar energy system was re-installed on the roofs of the new apartments — one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom units whose layouts were improved in the reconstruction.

Six families moved back in after cleanup in 2011, and another six at the beginning of 2012. Because the fire required immediate demolition of the section of the building where another 12 families lived, those families had to be re-housed until 2013.

Construction took eight months and cost $3.5 million for construction of the 12 new units alone.