Group that has already built 86 affordable apartments across from Roxbury Crossing T stop wants to put up 94 more instead of the office building it once planned

Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services this week submitted plans to the BPDA for a six-story, 94-unit apartment building between Tremont Street and Station Street along the Orange Line and Northeast Corridor tracks instead of the ten-story office building it had already won approval for.

The apartments, all to be rented to people making between 30% and 70% of the Boston area median income, would be next to 86 affordable apartments the group has put up along Tremont Street - 40 of which are now occupied and 46 for which the group hopes to gain a certificate of occupancy within the next few weeks.

The newest building would sit on a three-quarter-acre site that had been used as a staging area for construction for the first two buildings, according to the group's notice of project change.

Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Service said it decided to change its plans for the lot from offices to apartments in part because of declining demand for office space - even before the pandemic - in part because of "the dire need for additional affordable rental housing" on Mission Hill. It said it received 3,100 applications for the 46 apartments in the newer of the two buildings now up. The filing adds:

Despite years of pursuit, this institutional office space "economic engine" of the redevelopment of Parcel 25 did not materialize and became less necessary to the development goals of the overall phased project. Additionally, further understanding of existing site conditions and costs of construction made it clear that a 10-story building of steel construction with plates of below ground parking were no longer financially viable.

The new building would consist of five residential floors atop a ground floor that would include a 33-space garage - 8 spaces for resident of the new building and the rest for use by residential, commercial and office tenants in one of the other buildings. In its filing, the group noted the city no longer requires any parking for buildings in which all the units are rented as affordable. It would also be across the street from the Roxbury Crossing Orange Line stop.

Some 15 of the units would have three bedrooms, while another 15 would be fully handicap accessible. The building would also have a community room.

Along with the new building, Mission Hill says it would work with the city and the T to install a new cross-block crosswalk to the Roxbury Crossing T stop:

The Proponent is working with the City and the MBTA to realize the long-desired midblock crosswalk at [Tremont Street] as part of the MBTA's redesigns along Columbus Avenue/Tremont Street and will also work to allow for some short-term drop off spaces on this Tremont Street front and at the Gurney Street intersection at the entry to that portion of the pedestrian plaza.

Parcel 25 filings and meeting schedule.