FIVE-STORY BUILDING WILL CREATE 40 UNITS OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
July 14, 2017
by Catherine Carlock
This fall, the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership — a nonprofit and the state’s largest regional provider of rental-housing voucher assistance — will get a new home of its own: a vacant two-acre parcel formerly owned by the MBTA, across from the Roxbury Crossing Orange Line station.
Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services is building out a five-story building that will create 40 units of affordable housing an a 27,000-square-foot office for MBHP. The project is partially funded with $2.75 million from Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s $39 million commitment toward affordable housing projects, as well as an expected $2 million from a MBHP capital campaign.
Chris Norris, MBHP’s executive director, said the organization wanted to be located along the Orange Line for easier access to the 25,000 families it serves annually. “To both be on a transit node closer to the majority of families we work with, as well as closer for our employees, many of whom live in or around the neighborhood, was a key part of our decision to relocate,” Norris said.
The organization’s longtime home has been 125 Lincoln St., on the edge of downtown Boston’s Leather District. But in the past 15 years, MBHP’s rent has doubled, Norris said.
“We wanted to be able to take control of or own destiny, fiscally, and lock into a mortgage and have the opportunity to build equity in something that we owned,” he said.
The housing partnership expects to move in this fall.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for us to be, if you will, on the ground floor of what the city and state have prioritized as a key development corridor,” Norris said. “We’re very excited.”
Margulies Perruzzi Architects is the interior architect for MBHP’s office.
