Special to the Patriot-Bridg
Sarah Peck, development portfolio manager at the Boston Planning Department and manager for the Hood Park project, moderated a community public meeting on Zoom June 22 regarding the mixed-use development at 25 Supertest Street.
“We’re here today for the development team to share an overview of their proposed project and for the community to ask questions and share feedback,” Peck said at the outset of the meeting.
The 25 Supertest Street proposal – part of the ongoing Hood Park Master Plan – aims to transform the site into a prominent residential and hospitality destination. According to the development team, the project will feature a 130-key hotel, 104 multi-family residential units (including 20 affordable units), and the development of the Hood Green community open space.
Mark Rosenshein, co-founder and partner at Trademark Partners and a Charlestown resident, said the mixed-use building would consist of 224,000 square feet and 18 levels and be 235 feet in total height.
“The Hood Green is one acre of usable open space for the community as committed,” said Rosenshein.
David Manfredi, founding principal of Elkus Manfredi Architects, was the next speaker and his presentation was professional, direct, and concise – similar in nature to the all-time greatest NFL coach Bill Belichick talking about defense. There is no substitute for experience and Manfredi has been a giant in the field of Boston-area architecture for decades.
“It is, as you know, a combined hotel and residential building – there are 104 apartments, 130 hotel rooms, 138 parking spaces, and 108 bike spaces, half on the first floor, basically half on the floor below,” said Manfredi.
Manfredi said the lobby of the building would become “a mixed-use lobby of hotel and residence, each with their own core, meaning their own [separate] elevators, entrances, and front desks.”
Manfredi then described “the conceptual thinking of the development team and how this building evolved in the design process.”
“Residential and hotel are two uses that are extremely compatible, meaning that their metrics are very similar in terms of the width of the building,” he explained. “This is a building you live in, or you stay in, but it wants to be a personal scale about it as opposed to an office building or a lab building which really is of a whole different kind of scale. This is a personal scale of living, with kitchens and bathrooms, and living rooms, and bedrooms.”
Manfredi added that it will be “an all-electric building.”
Kate Kennon, founding principal of Offshoots, said her firm is the landscape architect for the project.
“Our office is located right on Rutherford Avenue, so we care really deeply about this project and are excited about it,” said Kennon.
Kennon said discussions with the community about the Hood Green space actually began in 2018.
“But what we would like to do from this point forward is to get your [the community’s] ideas about what you would like to see there,” said Kennon.
Kennon said the site will have “great sun exposure on the new Hood Green.”
Looking at the site plans, it was evident that Hood Green will likely become a tremendous gathering spot for local families with excellent recreational opportunities for children. Green said there will be a separate community meeting regarding the use of the space.
“We have this idea of having an active Green, with some sort of flexible land space in the center, where you can do sledding or a quick pick-up soccer game, or have a movie night,” said Green. “The idea with the play area – not another plastic play structure like we already have at Ryan Playground – what we heard from the community is there’s a lot of young kids in this area – could there be another place for parents to take kids to play that might be more naturalistic, integrated with nature, maybe more adventure-play?”
Kennon said there also could be adjacently “a multi-use plaza that could be programmed for events and markets and fun stuff like all of the great things that already happen at Hood Park Drive or on Hood Park in general.”
Peck then opened the meeting to questions from residents.
Nancy Johnsen asked about the public restroom facilities that would be available on the site.
Rosenshein responded that there are public restrooms “on campus at 6 Stack (an area within Hood Park) all the time, separate from the facilities that are provided for those people that are using The Yard [at Hood Park].”
“I really encourage you to try to figure out some way where we have some public facilities available for use in that space – it’s far from people’s homes. That was one thing that was really striking me as if there is a public space and a public amenity, you really need to have public restrooms, especially if you want families there, and especially if you’re going to have events like movie nights or markets or things like that. You need to have more than two, single restrooms available to the public and they should be much closer to the Green. If you’re really saying you want this [Hood Green] to be open to the public, there have to be public restrooms that are more adequate than two units.”
Chaton Green, a lifelong Boston resident, asked whether the development team “was in conversations about working with unions on this project.”
Rosenshein replied, “As part of our commitment to the Master Plan, we have agreed that all buildings that are built by Hood Park will be union-built.”
“We have not officially selected a construction manager for this project, but we are committed to 100 percent union construction for everything we build.”
Richard Johnston, who said he appreciated the presentation by the development team and the progress of the project while then noting that past projects in Charlestown have not come to fruition, asked three questions: “What gives you the confidence that you’ll be able to move forward with this project, how close are you to financing, and what’s your start construction schedule?”
Rosenshein responded directly, “Cart in front of the horse, I’ve got to get my permitting before I can finance or build it. So right now, our timeline would be sometime in the fall or early winter, I would like to think we resolve the community engagement process and the permitting. Our hope would be that we go through a financing and design process over the winter, and we are expecting to start construction in 2027. The short answer to your question is that nobody is building anything right now, which means that the construction prices and labor prices are much more comfortable if you can actually get financing in order to allow a project to move forward. We’re hoping that we’re hitting the market at a good time when contractors really need the work so the prices will be good, as well as you know that there have been very few new hotel keys developed in the City of Boston. With things like the Kraft [family] hopefully moving forward with a [soccer] stadium across the river, and other economic development engines that are occurring on the north side of the town, we feel pretty strongly that the hotel and residential component will be successful.”
In concluding the meeting, Peck said the public comment period on the project will remain open until Aug. 14.t