The Boston Planning and Development agency will host a virtual Public Meeting on February 28 at 6:30 pm in connection with the Planned Development Area (PDA) Master Plan for the former Domino Sugar Factory at 425 Medford Street project.
Residents can register for the meeting at www.bostonplans.org/news-calendar/calendar/2022/02/28/425-medford-street-public-meeting. The public comment period is open and residfnts can submit comments on the project at www.bostonplans.org/projects/development-projects/425-medford-street#comment_Form.
The Master Plan consists of the redevelopment of an approximately 25-acre site located at 425 Medford St. in Charlestown with a multi-phased mixed-use development focused on resolving sea-level-rise issues facing Charlestown and the areas beyond.
The City of Boston’s new coastal Zoning Overlay District that went into effect last month includes Charlesrtown’s waterfront along the Mystic River, the area around the Schrafft’s City Center wrapping around to Rutherford Avenue area and Mishawam as well as the Navy Yard along the Boston Harbor. The zoning requires new development in Charlestown and other Boston coastal neighborhoods to take additional steps to limit the damage and displacement related to the impacts of coastal storms and sea level rise.
According to recent studies, the one-percent annual chance flood – that has started to occur more and more frequently in recent years – storm surge would first cross the waterfront at Schrafft’s City Center and Ryan Playground, fill the Schrafft’s Center parking lot, and then flood onto Charlestown’s Main Street and beyond into the community.
The Flatley Company, who filed the Master Plan with the BPDA in November for its redevelopment of the former Domino Sugar Factory site at 425 Medford Street, offered a vision to combat sea level rise and protect the neighborhood from flooding.
Flatley’s proposed project will feature a 1.5 mile long sea-level-rise barrier integrated into five acres of publicly accessible waterfront recreational space.
According to Flatley’s filing the resilient flood barrier they propose will not be just a “wall” blocking the people of Charlestown from the waterfront. Instead, the flood barrier will be a new publicly accessible waterfront landscape stretching from Flatley’s property located at 529 Main Street, along 465 Medford Street to 425 Medford all totaling a half mile in length. This new resilient edge to the waterfront will include an extension to the Harborwalk and other public pathways, passive and active recreation areas and seating, green spaces and parks, multiple look-out areas, shade shelters, floodable seat steps, and a public boat launch, kayak launch, and dock.
In addition to the waterfront resiliency area, the proposed project will create another eight acres of public open space, totaling approximately 13 acres, all surrounding and incorporated with approximately 1.8 million gross square feet of mixed-use development featuring residential, hotel, office/laboratory, ground-floor retail, and parking uses.