Photo courtesy of Redgate Capital Partners.
Amid speculation that they would remove a housing component from their proposed redevelopment of South Boston’s former Edison power plant, a proposed planned development agreement submitted to the Boston Planning & Development Agency this week by Redgate Capital Partners and Hilco Redevelopment Partners still includes hundreds of units of housing.
The PDA document describes a roughly 1.78 million-square-foot project featuring 636 residential units, plus office, residential, hotel, retail and restaurant spaces. The project would be spread across nine buildings: the turbine halls and other historic buildings from the original plant, plus six new buildings arranged along a new street grid. Sixteen percent of the residential units would be designated affordable housing, according to the PDA, 20 units more than required under Boston’s Inclusionary Development Policy. The project would also contain 5.5 acres of public open space, including 2.5 acres of publicly accessible waterfront space.
Hilco and Redgate had originally sought to build 1,344 residential units, over 368,000 square feet of office space, over 85,000 square feet of retail space, and 344 rooms in two hotels on the 15-acre site on South Boston’s Reserved Channel. The developers had submitted plans to the Boston Civic Design Commission in July that showed 750 housing units along with nearly 470,000 square feet of R&D space, 330,000 square feet of office space, 344 hotel rooms and 81,000 square feet of retail space. At the time, the companies said they were exploring eliminating the housing component in response to community opposition.
Elected officials and residents have objected to the density of the development and its effects on traffic congestion and MBTA bus routes’ capacity in South Boston. And Massport holds a deed restriction prohibiting residential uses on the 15-acre property, which abuts its Conley Container Terminal trucking route.
The proposed PDA filed this week also states the project will contain 1,214 parking spaces in below-grade garages, at-grade and above-grade facilities; the PDA also states Redgate and Hilco will work with the city to offer night and weekend parking for nearby South Boston residents “at a discounted rate.” U.S. Rep Stephen Lynch, who represents South Boston in Congress, had announced in a letter submitted in late 2018 that he would only support the project if the developers provided 120 off-street parking spots to nearby residents.
