Developer pitches affordable housing in Newton’s Nonantum neighborhood
- By lkarls@criteriondp.com
- •
- 28 Aug, 2019
Newton city councilors say they are working with a developer who wants to build hundreds of new rental housing units, with room for retail and commercial uses, on the site of a Nonantum industrial property along the Charles River.
Criterion Development Partners is proposing 204 rental units, including 51 permanently affordable units, plus more than 17,000 square feet of office space and 4,600 square feet for retail use, according to the city. The site is located on about 3.4 acres on Riverdale Avenue, off of California Street.
The proposed mixed-use development would be built under the state’s Chapter 40B affordable housing law. The proposal comes after Mark Development’s Robert Korff proposed a 40B development in West Newton late last month.
With all eyes regarding development on the Sullivan Square area right now, one project that will impact Charlestown – but is only slightly in the Town – has been approved and will be ready for construction in about 12 months.
Criterion Development, of Waltham and Dallas, permitted with the City of Somerville a major development on Cambridge Street in the Lost Village recently. That development will remake an entire half of a block, including reimagining the Somerville City Club, building out 205 residential units and eventually building a hotel on the Charlestown side of the property.
The L-shaped development tract was a little off the radar in Charlestown due to the fact that most of it lies in Somerville along the Inner Belt Road and across the street from the Somerville Holiday Inn – meaning that permits and processes were run out of Somerville City Hall and not Boston.
Jack Englert, of Criterion’s Waltham office, said they have permitted 205 units of housing and they will be rebuilding the Somerville City Club within the development. It will be reinvented as a pub or some other entertainment hub. The City Club is well known to those in the Town for frequently hosting Charlestown-themed boxing nights, as well as other functions over the years.
Englert said they typically build luxury units, so this development will include a full array of amenity space, with some modifications to that program due to COVID-19 lifestyle changes.
One piece of property that is in Charlestown – and was purchased late last year from Paradigm Properties (which has owned industrial and research/development properties on Roland Street since 2012) – will one day host a full-service hotel. It will be located on the corner of Washington Street/Cambridge Street and Inner Belt.
“That plan is out there when the industry comes back,” he said.
The plan is for one building, five stories tall that would include 400 spaces of parking to be shared between three uses – including an office space for Paradigm, the City Club and the residences.
“We should be delivering our first units in 24 months from now,” Englert said. “It could be a little less time. You’ll start to see some major activity there in about 12 months.”
Read more: https://charlestownbridge.com/2021/03/11/new-development-on-charlestown-line/