5 Years Ago: 2015
Zakim Files Order About Hosting Olympics
City Councilor Josh Zakim announced that he has filed an order for four nonbinding questions about Boston’s 2024 Summer Olympics bid to appear on the Nov. 3 municipal election ballots.
The yes-or-no questions would ask whether Boston should host the Games, and if so, whether public money or seizing of private property by eminent domain should be used. The vote would come after a September deadline for submitting the first draft of Boston’s official bid, but before the International Olympics Committee would make a final decision in 2017.
CEDAC Is a Private-Public Community Development Finance Institution
MHNHS plans a mixed-use redevelopment for Parcel 25, which is bordered by Tremont, Gurney and Station streets, across from the Roxbury Crossing MBTA Station. The former T-owned property is now vacant.
The 305,750-square-foot project will be done in three phases, and once completed, include 88 housing units, 10,000 square feet of retail space, 196,500 square feet of office space and 1,250 square feet of community space. The project will also have 201 surface and below-ground parking spaces.
Receives Funds for Project
The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) recently approved a $200,000 loan to the Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services (MHNHS) for its transit-oriented project at Parcel 25, according to a press release.
“Well-located community development projects make it easier for residents to commute to work and get around the city, which helps them to improve their quality of life and improve access to education, employment and other opportunities,” said CEDAC’s executive director Roger Herzog, according to the press release.
10 Years Ago: 2010
“One Brigham Circle for sale”
The gigantic One Brigham Circle commercial building was listed for sale by its developers, Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services and the New Boston Fund, seven years after its opening. The building sold the next month to AEW Capital Management for nearly $97 million. A landmark of the neighborhood’s physical and economic transformation, One Brigham Circle was built on a largely vacant site and included the adjacent Kevin W. Fitzgerald Park.
15 Years Ago: 2005
“Church Plans Call for 229 Units”
Weston Associates unveiled its final plans for redeveloping part of the Mission Church complex along Smith Street into two residential towers flanking a renovated Mission Grammar School. The plans, which involved demolishing two historic buildings and replacing them with 9- and 13-story buildings, received mixed community response. But a decade later, the project remains stalled for unknown reasons, and both Weston and Mission Church have declined to comment on its status, while the Boston Redevelopment Authority has publicly pushed for progress. Meanwhile, two of the buildings sit vacant, while the former school is leased to the Harvard School of Public Health.
20 Years Ago: 2000
“Local Groups Celebrate Groundbreaking for New Housing”
More than 75 neighbors and supporters joined the Back of the Hill Community Development Corporation (BOTH) and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC) at the Jan. 29 groundbreaking ceremony for 22 units of affordable housing on city-owned vacant lots on Wensley Street, Bickford Avenue and Fisher Avenue. Today, the two nonprofit developers are now teaming on a similar project on Heath Street.
25 Years Ago: 1995
“PZAC’s Future Unclear”
The Mission Hill Planning and Zoning Advisory Committee, appointed by Mayor Flynn in 1988 to advise the Boston Redevelopment Authority on new local zoning plans, finished its Mission Hill rezoning work and was set to review the Longwood Medical Area rezoning. It was unclear whether it would continue to exist and review new developments—a significant issue because there were few local community organizations at the time. There was dispute about whether PZAC was representative of the neighborhood and its lack of actual power. In the end, the city dissolved PZAC and the Community Alliance of Mission Hill, founded in 1993, became the more prominent development-reviewing organization.