The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) and Charlestown Resident Alliance (CRA) announced this week the addition of Leggat McCall Properties to the redevelopment team for its Bunker Hill public housing development.
The unveiled development plan with Leggat McCall and Corcoran now calls for new mid-rise buildings with 2,700 mixed-income apartments – which includes the replacement of the 1,100 existing public housing units already at Bunker Hill – and some ground-level retail/community space. The new plan with Leggat is a reduction of several hundred units from the original proposal nearly two years ago, which included a total of about 3,200 mixed-income units.
The redevelopment plan preserves all deeply affordable units currently available to low-income families while creating new market-rate housing to help meet the needs of the City of Boston’s continuing population growth.
“We are pleased to jointly announce this new partnership with Leggatt McCall,” said BHA Director William McGonagle. “We are hopeful we can now move forward with the long-awaited redevelopment of the Bunker Hill community. We look forward to a robust public review of the proposal this coming fall.”
Leggat McCall will join development partner Corcoran Jennison Associates to redevelop the Bunker Hill Apartments, New England’s largest federal housing project.
Since the start of the year, the BHA and the CRA have worked with Leggat and Corcoran to create a revised redevelopment plan to transform the Bunker Hill site into a new, vibrant, mixed-income community while simultaneously preserving all affordable apartments for current and future generations.
This new and financially sustainable redevelopment proposal will involve the phased demolition of existing buildings, substantial infrastructure improvements, and construction of new, mid-rise residential buildings containing identical market-rate and affordable units.
There will also be retail and community spaces at ground level. The current plan proposes 2,700 mixed-income apartments.
“The CRA welcomes Leggat McCall to our partnership,” said Tiara Murphy, president of the CRA. “We look forward to working with them and our neighbors on our vision to preserve our valuable public housing and create a mixed-income community we can all be proud of.”
State Rep. Dan Ryan said he looks forward to more discussions about the project, and to begin that process once again.
“I look forward to continuing the discussions regarding the Bunker Hill housing development,” he said. “I’ll be better able to make comments when the updated plans are shared with the entire community.”
City Councilor Lydia Edwards said she looks forward to a strong community process.
“Preserving affordable housing is critical for Charlestown and all of Boston,” she said. “I’m pleased to see the One Charlestown project moving forward with the support of BHA residents, and look forward to a strong community process from the designated developer, Leggat McCall. I will continue to ensure the redevelopment is transparent to all of Charlestown and will be holding a follow-up hearing this fall.”
Many community meetings to present the plan neighborhood wide will be conducted beginning in the early fall. Already, a meeting of the BHA tenants at Bunker Hill was to take place Wednesday night, Sept. 5, to formally announce the new partnership and plan.