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17-story apartment building approved for Allston's GAP; half its lot will be saved for use by MBTA's proposed West Station
By adamg on Wed, 09/13/2023 - 9:29am
Rendering by Embarc.
The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved City Realty's proposal for a 17-story, 254-unit apartment building at Ashford and Malvern streets in Allston.
A key part of the plan: Roughly half the lot, now occupied by a one-story warehouse and parking lot, would be held for the proposed West Station, should that ever actually be built. The proposal calls for City Realty to sell that land to the state, which would, if it builds West Station - use the land to extend Malvern Street to the station and use it for a busway for the station, along with dedicated "cycle track" bike lanes. The station, if built, would serve both existing Allston and the massive development Harvard is planning for the former train yard next door.
Map showing project site (pink), possible West Station and, north of that, Harvard's development:
City Realty's $150-million building would include 36 affordable apartments. However, the developer says it would use the proceeds from the sale of the West Station land - which might yield up to $4.5 million - to find up to 15 units elsewhere in Allston to rent as affordable.
The building would have ground-floor retail space, with one unit reserved for an "affordable" lease with a local business.
The building would have 63 parking spaces. Even aside from West Station, which has no specific start date, the site is within walking distance of the Green Line at Packards Corner and bus lines, City Realty attorney Jeff Drago said.
The Allston Civic Association opposed the proposal.
Association President Anthony D'Isidoro started with the further downtown-ification of Allston. "All along the turnpike, towers are being built," he said. "We're not a downtown neighborhood and people are starting to get very concerned that buildings are getting higher and higher. ... Downtown buildings are really taking away from the character of our community."
But D'Isidoro also pointed to the possibility that a building right next to the BU campus would only mean further rent increases for the rest of the neighborhood as students outbid longtime residents for units. The building is in the middle of the Gardner-Ashford-Pratt BU student warren.
D'Isidor said that City Realty has been "very good" about limiting undergraduate rentals in its buildings, but continued that the new menace is graduate students outbidding the locals for apartments. "It's becoming a very tenuous situation in terms of affordability," he said.
The board approved the project unanimously. The BPDA also approved the plan, in July.
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Comments
Allston Civic Association NIMBY Logic
So building 254 new apartment units in a spot currently occupied by a warehouse and parking lots willl... increase rents?!! More evidence the Allston Civic Association is not to be taken seriously.
Increase supply, increase price?
Yeah, I failed to understand that logic. Adding inventory, to a location that currently has none, seems like a win for everyone.
What good is the ACA?
It’s hard to take them seriously and I sometimes wonder what good they really do. They allow residents to show up in meetings and rant away about mostly baseless concerns. Such as how a new restaurant with a bar will lead to more drunk driving accidents and children will see drunk people in the streets. Ignoring of course that the proposed location had a liquor store down the street. And for some reason, according to them large new apartment buildings are naturally going to produce a lot of people doing heinous drugs, like marijuana.
Come on, Tony
I like Tony but … these arguments really rub me the wrong way.
The issue seems to be that the building would be behind these homes on Sawyer Terrace, which has a character right out of mid-90s Southie-in-Good Will Hunting.
The thing is there's already a 7-story building at that corner. And BU's campus is not devoid of tall buildings. And if the State, Feds, Harvard and BU put up money for West Station (and the T runs more service; the new Commuter Rail schedules are a small step in the right direction), they'll want to build up, and why shouldn't they. Most of what is going to happen is going to be north of the neighborhood, anyway, so shadows won't be too much of an issue (this will have a shadow until maybe 7 a.m. in the summer, and not at all in the winter).
In a perfect world, everyone would get in line about West Station and the Turnpike tomorrow, figure out the funding, and build 10,000 units of grad housing on that site which would be slightly below market rate which would pull a lot of pressure off the surrounding neighborhoods. Throw market rate and affordable in there as well.
the tall builings
are ruining our view of the Pike?
Why are grad students bad and
Why are grad students bad and locals good? Why is an organization which so blatantly discriminates allowed to have the city's ear? Someone needs to represent the grad students.