Tag: Jackson Square

Jackson Square’s Master Plan Comes To Life

Since the beginning of the new year, the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) has invested more than $1.1 million in efforts by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC) to revitalize Jackson Square and the surrounding community. On March 2, CEDAC approved a $400,000 loan to JPNDC for the development of General Heath Square Apartments, a 47-unit affordable rental property located a quarter mile from Jackson Square. A few weeks earlier, CEDAC approved $750,000 for the nonprofit’s new development at 25 Amory St. The project, which shares a parcel with a proposed mixed-income building by The Community Builders (TCB), is the latest in a series of affordable and market-rate housing developments making up the Jackson Square Redevelopment Master Plan.

Sara Barcan Head Shot

Sara Barcan

The Jackson Square Redevelopment, led by Jackson Square Partners (JSP) – a collaboration among JPNDC, Urban Edge, TCB and Hyde Square Task Force – is one of the largest community-driven developments in the country and will create over 300 new homes, and community and commercial space. JSP received a $3.4 million MassWorks grant in September, which will promote the development of infrastructure and greenspace. This current grant, along with the $4.7 million previously committed by the commonwealth for infrastructure improvements, reinforces the strong support for such revitalization.

The Jackson Square story goes back more than five decades. When the commonwealth proposed building a commuter highway to run through the heart of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, residents of the adjoining communities organized against it. They succeeded in halting the construction, but not before public agencies had acquired acres of land and demolished homes. In Jackson Square, 12 parcels of land comprising almost 9 acres and a total of 793,000 square feet lay empty for decades.

The then-Boston Redevelopment Authority appointed a Jackson Coordinating Group with representatives from local organizations in 1999. A comprehensive planning process over the next five years culminated in developer designation of JSP. JSP’s vision to redevelop and give new life to Jackson Square has made a tremendous difference in ensuring that the revived neighborhood is meeting the needs of current residents, including improved access to the MBTA, rather than contributing to their displacement.

CEDAC joined a consortium of local lenders to provide the Jackson Square Partners a $1.5 million predevelopment loan for master planning in 2006. Since then, the neighborhood has blossomed with new affordable housing developments focused on helping those who would be most at risk of displacement from gentrification, and CEDAC has made additional predevelopment and permanent loans to advance these projects.

Construction’s Ripples Felt Beyond JP’s Borders

Jackson Square saw the first of the affordable housing sub-projects built in 2010. Although not technically part of the master plan, JPNDC’s 270 Centre St., which provides 30 new units of affordable housing as well as street-level commercial space, now acts as a gateway for the new neighborhood. A second critical affordable housing project, Urban Edge’s Jackson Commons, was completed in 2015. Located on Columbus Avenue, Jackson Commons includes 37 new units of affordable housing, with six set aside for formerly homeless families, and office space in a newly renovated century-old building. That same year, JPNDC broke ground at 75 Amory Ave., which will bring 39 units of affordable housing to the neighborhood.

These projects, along with The Community Builders’ completed mixed-use, mixed-income 225 Centre St. project adjacent to the Jackson Square MBTA station, now form a ring of redevelopment around Jackson Square. They have spurred other community-based construction projects near Jackson Square, like the General Heath Square project and the construction of Nurtury Learning Lab, a state-of-the-art nonprofit child care center that opened in 2014. Urban Edge is at the beginning stages of developing a new affordable housing complex at a parcel on Columbus Avenue that is outside the master plan area, but still a part of the neighborhood, and the CDC continues to work on creating the Jackson Square Recreation Center. Most recently, the Boston Housing Authority announced that it will be soliciting proposals to rebuild a portion of the nearby Mildred C. Hailey public housing complex, formerly known as Bromley-Heath, and has recently approved the JP/ROX rezoning plan, which will encourage mixed-income housing for the neighborhood adjacent to Jackson Square.

The success of Jackson Square in creating new homes for residents across a range of incomes not only shows that local and state governments can work with nonprofit partners to help spur neighborhood and economic development in healthy ways, but that they can also create an ongoing and positive ripple effect beyond neighborhood borders. It’s a model worth following.

Roger Herzog is the executive director of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation. Sara Barcan is CEDAC’s director of housing development.

http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/2017/03/jackson-squares-master-plan-comes-life/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork

SourceBanker & Tradesman

Slick Jamaica Plain proposal would look right at home in Kendall Square

Think it is tough landing a market-rate apartment? Try snagging an affordable rental.
Richard Thal, executive director of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (NDC), notes the nonprofit has been flooded with 4,000 applications for the last 100 units with subsidized, below-market rents it has helped build.
That’s 40 people vying for each affordable unit, which are typically reserved for low and moderate income renters.
Hoping to do its part to help ease the city’s housing crunch, the Jamaica Plain NDC is moving ahead with plans for a third phase in its sweeping redevelopment of Jackson Square where J.P. and Roxbury meet.
The nonprofit and a development partner want to build a mix of affordable and market-rate apartments and a small amount of retail across from the Jackson Square T stop in plans filed this week at City Hall.
It comes atop years of redevelopment efforts that have helped transform Jackson Square from an urban backwater to an up-and-coming part of the city.
“The hope all along was that Jackson Square would be a place people would want to come to and stay in, and live in, and work in, and play in,” Thal said. “It hasn’t been that for many decades.”
In a watershed for Jackson Square, a new mixed-income apartment building at 225 Centre Street rented out briskly when it opened two years ago, establishing the viability of market-rate housing in the area.
The Jamaica Plain NDC is now pushing ahead with its final installment of its Jackson Square redevelopment, which features a pair of buildings with a cutting-edge, modern flair that would be at home in Kendall Square.
The latest proposal, though, is a smaller and revamped version of an earlier one put forth back in 2007 by the nonprofit, which does business as Jackson Square Partners.
The first version called for a mix of condos and apartments, as well as more retail and more parking.
But market conditions have since changed, while Jackson Square Partners lost control of one of the parcels on the development site.
The redrawn plans call for about the same number of housing units – 144 units – but all rental rather than a mix of apartments and condos.
Jackson Square Partners will take the lead on Building M, or 15 Jackson St., which is slated for 44 subsidized affordable rentals, as well as 22 parking spaces. The majority of apartments will be “sized for families,” with two or more bedrooms, the proposal notes.
The Community Builders, the nonprofit’s development wingman, will build Building N at 250 Centre St. The building will feature a mix of market-rate and affordable units, 80 parking spaces, and 2,400 square feet of “neighborhood-focused retail.”
The latest Jackson Square proposal still faces months of city reviews before final approvals are expected.
The current timetable calls for a construction launch on the affordable units in the spring of 2017, followed by the second building of mostly market rate units that fall.
A centerpiece park and plaza are also planned, with work slated to begin on that in 2018, though funding is expected to be more challenging than it has been for the apartments.
“The demand for housing is just tremendous,” Thal said. “More and more people are feeling the squeeze.”

SourceBoston.com

Walsh, Developers Announce Jackson Square Redevelopment Milestones

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Jackson Square Partners recently announced three milestones marking the final phases of development in the $250 million Jackson Square Redevelopment Master Plan, conceived and developed over a decade ago:
• The $21 million Jackson Commons, comprised of a 37-unit, mixed-use and mixed-income housing development near the Jackson Square MBTA stop, has been completed. Eight units are reserved for homeless/formerly homeless residents earning no more than 30 percent of average median income (AMI). The remaining 29 units are affordable to residents with income limits of 60 percent AMI to 110 percent AMI. The development also has more than 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The redevelopment consisted of the adaptive re-use and renovation of the 100-year-old Webb Building.
• Ground has been broken at 75 Amory Ave., marking the third phase of a $16 million development that will create 39 units of affordable housing for families. The site is being developed by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corp.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the city $200,000 in brownfields grant for the remediation of the former industrial sites next to Jackson Commons, at 1542 Columbus Avenue in Roxbury. This land will be transformed into a recreation center for the neighborhood.
“I am proud that the city of Boston has invested funding into the redevelopment of these once vacant and underutilized public and private parcels,” Walsh said in a statement. “I want to thank the EPA for this grant to help us move forward with the process of restoring the land to a useful state, and our partners for working with us to create transit-oriented housing that will knit the Roxbury and Jamaica Plain neighborhood together.”

SourceBanker & Tradesman