Boston-based developer Urban Edge Housing Corp. broke ground Friday on the Walker Park apartments, a 49-unit, $17.5 million affordable rental housing complex in Roxbury’s Egleston Square.
Urban Edge is redeveloping three vacant parcels next to the Egleston Square Library into apartments restricted to households earning a maximum of 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), including eight units reserved for families earning no more than 30 percent of AMI.
The development is being built under the city’s Lean Pilot Project, which is designed to cut construction costs through coordination between the developer, architect and city officials from the early stages of the design process. Nearly 50 percent of the project’s subcontractors are minority-owned businesses and more than 22 percent are women-owned enterprises.
Financing for the project included $2.6 million from the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development and $3.46 million in state and federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.
Financing team members also include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Brookline Bank, the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp., MassDevelopment, MassHousing, Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp., Massachusetts Housing Partnership, US Bank Corp., and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The development is named for the late community activist Delphine Walker, whose home previously occupied one of the parcels. Walker Park Apartments will include 13 one-bedroom, 28 two-bedroom and eight three-bedroom family apartments, an elevator for accessibility, on-site laundry facilities, on-site parking and a pocket park along Columbus Avenue.
Along with Urban Edge, the development team includes Prellwitz Chilinski Assoc. as architect and NEI General Contracting, Inc. as the general contractor.
–Banker & Tradesman (October 30, 2017)
