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Developer wants to add a couple of floors to a building across from Ramsay Park in Roxbury
By adamg on Sun, 04/08/2018 - 2:44pm
Rendering that shows six people, all white.
The Community Development Corp. of Boston has filed plans with the BPDA to make an office building at the corner of Washington and Thorndike streets taller and wider, and convert it to mainly residential space, with retail space on the ground floor.
The new building would have 31 residential units, most with small decks and with access to a larger roof deck.Ten of the units would be two-bedroom duplexes; the rest of the units would be studios or standard two-bedroom units. The building would have 21 parking spaces. To widen the existing floors, a one-story neighboring garage would be knocked down.
The filing does not specify whether the required affordable units would be in the building or whether the developer would instead contribute to a BPDA fund used to build or acquire affordable units elsewhere.
The filing does discuss the architect's goals for the expanded building:
The Project’s urban design goal is to significantly enhance this Roxbury mixed-used corridor along Washington Street by creating a pedestrian friendly environment and providing new housing, a ground floor restaurant space, parking, and useable outdoor space. The design concept aims to infill the Site with a structure that is in scale with the mixed-use street wall found on Washington and is consistent with the character of the neighborhood. The Project acknowledges the importance of the corner condition of the Site, appropriately scaled to relate to existing buildings on the street, and creates an architectural element that marks the corner with a new restuarant space and highlights the introduction of new construction coexisting with the urban fabric of the larger block. The design enhances the distinct character of the existing buildings along Washington and Thorndike Streets, with new construction stepping back from these structures to minimize the visibility of the main portion of the additional two-story building.
1950 Washington St. small-project review applilcation (16.5M PDF).
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Comments
Seems Like A Smart Project
It would be good it this ended up enhancing and benefitting the existing Roxbury community, rather than just adding on to the South End at Roxbury's expense.
Good but a drop in the bucket
There are so many open lots in the area. If the Silver Line was an effective, yet word effective, transit corridor, you would see this project x 30
Usually...
...a developer trumpets the inclusion of some "affordable" units to help pave the way for approval by the BPDA. Since there's not a peep about affordable units and the description sounds very millennial, yuppy, gentrifying I'd say there won't be any at 1950 Washington - unless the BPDA forces the issue.
Read.
The intro says that they’re not specifying yet whether the affordable units will be onsite or offsite—creating affordable units for a project this size isn’t optional or something the BPDA has to “force”—a certain percentage is required.
How do you know that they're all white?
Since you needlessly raised the race issue, that blonde female on the second floor balcony could very well be a "person of color" for employment purposes or at least 1/32 Cherokee. Is that a copy of "Pow Wow Chow" in her hand?
What hey really need to do is
What hey really need to do is skip the parking spots. They could turn that space into some studio or even micro units. Or bicycle storage. Car owners are so spoiled.
So you
Have an issue with white people living in black areas. What about black people moving to white areas. Do you not like that either?
What I have an issue with ...
Are architects who completely fail to acknowledge or represent the neighborhood they're dropping something into.
Please point me to a rendering that shows all black people for a building in South Boston or West Roxbury.
The VW Beetle triggered me....
Hipster without a bike alert.
Maybe the architects
Were more concerned with the building than the race of nonexistent people in a rendering. Not everyone is obsessed with race, you clearly are an outlier.
Renderings Like These
Are not engineering drafts, they're sales pitches. They are designed to promote an image of something in what someone considers its most favorable light. So when that pitch includes an image of a project devoid of people of color (alongside a predominately POC part of town), it's noteworthy.
Lets be clear
They are trying to sell a building not future pedestrians.
If they're not concerned with race
Why not make all the people brown skinned? I mean, since it is irrelevant, perhaps they should.
Just because Adam sees this when he looks at the rendering, doesn't mean that it's not a relevant observation. Perhaps some of us who look like the people in these renderings have some concern about the appearance that these new developments wouldn't have people who don't look like us living in or around them. Perhaps we are concerned with the image that Boston is inhospitable to those who aren't white and see these images as confirmation that these new developments are meant for white folk.
This proposal is being
This proposal is being submitted by a CDC, so it's kind of weird they wouldn't mention anything about their mission in the community impacts. This particular CDC deals with low income housing and homeless issues.
My assumption would be some of these smaller units may be reserved for homrless transition
They need money too
They need to build market rate housing in order to fund their affordable buildings. That's just the way it works. In the absence of a large grant, large projects like this can't be funded without using the money made from market rate housing. They haven't specified, but perhaps they see a market here for all market rate housing at a price that will find twice as many affordable units elsewhere. Or maybe they will just include the units in this building. It is going to come down to how much they can fund without the building being entirely market rate.
CDC
Are they a traditional CDC (builds affordable housing, workforce development, small biz TA) or just named one? I know they own a few buildings in Roxbury/South End but have never heard of them other than seeing their name other than building owners. Seems like a good project though (as long as they put the affordable hsg on site).
Not only that...
But there isn't even one bird flying above this building.
6th floor?
They're missing a 6th floor plan, and the rear balconies need supports but none are shown
Good project
The existing building is in rough shape to those that know the area. Looks like a good project. I'd guess mostly market rate units here to help pay for other buildings the CDC operates as transitional and affordable housing elsewhere. They cite transitional housing for homeless individuals in a building they own on Columbia Road, for example. Dudley Square businesses would benefit from this too along with the hotel coming along around the corner.
The current streetview
It's not an ugly building right now.
https://goo.gl/maps/A4wsmLmyjuL2