Mixed-income apartment building in Jackson Square wins approval

The Board of Appeal this week approved plans for a 112-unit apartment building at 250 Centre St., which will fill in yet another hole in the streetscape left over from the I-95 extension that never was.

The Community Builders of the Back Bay says that 40 of the units will be rented as affordable, with 7 of those set aside for families that have been homeless for a long time.

The proposed building would rise 70 feet - six stories of residential space atop an 80-space garage that would be rise roughly a half story above ground. A small retail space on the first floor would be marketed towards a restaurant or other operator seeking to attract customers heading to and from the nearby Jackson Square Orange Line stop.

The developer will work with the MBTA to develop parkland along the Orange Line tracks.

The building would sit kitty corner from the T stop and across from 225 Centre St., which opened a couple of years ago. Both 250 and 225 Centre are part of an overall Jackson Square master plan that seeks to build atop parcels that the state took by eminent domain on either side of Columbus Avenue when it was planning to extend I-95 from Canton to a planned "inner belt" highway atop what is now Melnea Cass Boulevard.

Gov. Frank Sargent canceled the plans in 1972, but the buildings on the parcels had already been torn down.

Columbus Avenue in Jackson Square in 1960:

Jackson Square Phase 3 plans (6M PDF).

Photo from the BPL collection. Posted under this Creative Commons license.