Image courtesy of DHK Architects
Owners of a Roxbury grocery store that partnered with a local nonprofit on a redevelopment say a housing tower that’s planned in an upcoming phase violates a decade-old agreement and will harm its business.
In a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court, the Tropical Foods owners say their development partners improperly increased the size of the project, which will take away valuable parking spaces from the store.
Madison Park Development Corp. and Boston-based Trinity Financial are partnering on the parcel 10 project at 2085 Washington St.
The third phase of the project was originally planned as a 59,000-square-foot mixed-use building, but developers received approval in 2022 to build a 10-story, 96-unit residential building.
The site includes land previously owned by Tropical Foods and parcels owned by the Boston Planning & Development Agency and Massachusetts Department of Transportation. A new grocery store was constructed on one of the parcels in an earlier phase, which shares parking with the lot of the disputed project.
The decision to develop the larger housing tower violates a 2013 construction, operation, reciprocal easement and restriction agreement between Tropical Foods and the development team, according to the complaint submitted by attorney Scott Ford of Braintree-based Schlossberg LLC.
Tropical Foods is responsible for managing and maintaining the parking lot under the 2013 agreement.
“While on paper the plaintiffs are entitled to exclusive use of 91 spaces, it is virtually impossible in practice to enforce this,” the complaint states, adding that Tropical Foods agreed to locate the new store at the site because of the “known zoning regulations that limited the size of any proposed future development.”
In July 2023, the BPDA sent Tropical Foods a notice of lease default because it opposed the larger housing development, claiming that its opposition violated terms of the agreement to “reasonably cooperate” with the parcel 10 development.
“What is being proposed is patently unreasonable (twice as tall/twice as large) and will directly and adversely impact [Tropical Foods’] business,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit names Madison Trinity 2085 Development LLC and the BPDA as defendants, and alleges breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation and violations of Chapter 93A, the Massachusetts consumer protection law.
The BPDA board approved the housing project in May 2022, and voted in October to extend the Madison Park-Trinity Financial team’s designation as developer through April 30.
The 5-story, 129,378-square-foot housing project would include 64 apartments reserved for households earning up to 80 percent of area median income, and 32 condos, 24 of which would be available at up to 120 percent AMI.
The development team and BPDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
