Nonprofits Revitalize Blighted Lot in Boston

The transit-oriented development brings 76 mixed-income units to the Mattapan neighborhood.

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Andy Ryan Photography

Two nonprofits are breathing new life into a vacant site that once housed the Cote Ford dealership in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood. The Planning Office for Urban Affairs (POUA) partnered with Caribbean Integration Community Development, which has deep ties in the community, to create the 76-unit Cote Village for residents with a diverse range of incomes.

To revitalize the site and fit the scale of the surrounding neighborhood, the team created four townhouse buildings and a five-story apartment building. It also reused the semi-underground part of a concrete and steel building on site to accommodate parking and auxiliary spaces for the new development. In addition, a playground benefits Cote Village residents as well as the community at large.

Andy Ryan Photography

Cote Village is providing affordable and workforce housing for families earning between 30% and 100% of the area median income, with 10% of the units set aside for residents who have previously experienced homelessness. The demand for this new mixed-income housing was substantial, with over 2,000 applicants for the 24 townhomes and over 2,400 applicants for the 52 apartments.

“This has been a blighted and vacant site for decades at the entrance to Mattapan Square, the commercial and community hub,” says Shaina Korman-Houston, director of real estate at POUA. “We’re very excited to have attractive new housing there and to have some commercial space for this community. It’s also right at a new commuter rail station so it’s going to give these 76 households transit access to the city and the broader region.”

The $48.6 million development, which received funding from both the city and the state, was primarily financed through low-income housing tax credit equity.

PROJECT DETAILS

DEVELOPERS: Planning Office for Urban Affairs and Caribbean Integration Community Development
ARCHITECT: Davis Square Architects
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Bilt-Rite Construction
MAJOR FUNDERS: Bank of America; MassHousing; Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development; city of Boston; Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.

About the Author

Christine Serlin

Christine Serlin is an editor for Affordable Housing Finance, Multifamily Executive, and Builder. She has covered the affordable housing industry since 2001. Before that, she worked at several daily newspapers, including the Contra Costa Times and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Connect with Christine at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @ChristineSerlin.