Another apartment building proposed near Ashmont T stop, this one aimed at young professionals with no kids

A developer and a neighborhood business group have filed plans with the BRA for a 64-unit apartment building across from the Ashmont T stop in Dorchester.

The proposal, by Peregrine Group LLC and St. Marks Area Main Street, calls for the replacement of the long shuttered Odwin Learning Center at 1943 Dorchester Ave. and a parking lot now used by patrons of Tavolo with a five-story building that would also have first-floor commercial space.

The Codman Square Health Center, which has agreed to sell the Odwin parcel, would get first dibs on part of that space for a neighborhood clinic, according to the BRA filing.

The building is across the street from the Carruth building and on the same side of Dot. Ave. as the proposed 87-unit TOD II building on the Ashmont Tire site.

Most of the apartments at 1943 would be studios, with 18 one-bedroom units and 4 two-bedroom units. A total of eight apartments would be marketed as affordable, for people earning up to 100% of the area median income, with the rest rented at market rates.

The building would have just 24 parking spaces, which Peregrine says emphasizes its "transit oriented" nature, being across from a Red Line station and all.

It adds:

The building is designed to complement the neighborhood’s architectural character both along the more commercial Dorchester Avenue frontage and the residential scale of the surrounding Ashmont Hill/Ashmont Valley neighborhoods. The building is constructed as a single structure. The presentation to the street is appropriate to the scale and character of each streetscape. The building will thoughtfully address the existing residential 2‐4‐family homes as well as the more dense newly constructed/planned buildings of the Carruth and TOD2. It will incorporate design elements including articulated massing, materials and a continuous storefront at the street level to complement and connect to the planned residential and commercial spaces so that the development reads clearly as one deliberate mixed-use development.

The residential building design elements both inside and out will create a high quality living environment for young urban professionals, graduate and medical students, young families and empty nesters. As part of the greater Ashmont/Peabody Square revitalization efforts sponsored by St. Marks Area Main Street, the project will incorporate visual and streetscape elements designed to encourage pedestrian flow throughout the residential and commercial components of the development logically connecting the site together with the vibrant retail, restaurant, transit, parking and open space amenities located in the greater neighborhood.

1943 Dorchester Ave. small-project review application (5.5M PDF).

Developer submitted these before and after images of how the project would improve Dot. Ave. through the addition of sidewalk plantings, seats and 300% more hipsters: