Somerville, MA Boston Realty Advisors brokered the sale of 299 Bdwy., a promising development site.
The 2.6-acre site, at 299 Bdwy. and 15 Temple St., is in the Winter Hill neighborhood of the city. It is now the location of a Walgreens pharmacy, a former Star Market and a parking lot. The sale closed on October 11th.
“It was a pleasure working with both the buyer and seller on this transaction,” said Jason Weissman, principal and founder of Boston Realty Advisors. “The development partnership of Mark Development and Beacon Communities will add much-needed affordable housing to the city of Somerville.”
299 Bdwy. is less than a half mile from the Gilman Sq. stop on the MBTA’s Green Line Extension and along several MBTA-operated bus lines.
Mark Development and its partners at Beacon Communities and RISE Together are proposing a residential project in the Winter Hill neighborhood. Located in a long-underutilized section of Broadway, the project (proposed under Chapter 40B) is inspired by the Winter Hill neighborhood plan and offers a mix of affordable and market-rate residential units, retail space, community gathering areas, and a new arts and creative civic enterprise space. The project, which is comprised of two mixed-use buildings, will create a new civic pocket plaza along Broadway and a new neighborhood pocket park on Sewall St.
Key Project Elements:
• 288 rental housing units (studio to three-bedroom);
• 13,640 s/f of ground floor retail space;
• 3,000 s/f of community space (flexible meeting area);
• 765 s/f of arts & creative enterprise space; and
• 15,000 s/f of publicly accessible civic space (plaza and park).
Project Design:
Two mixed-use buildings (totaling 330,000 s/f) anchor the project, filling in a gap in the existing Broadway streetscape. Architects at Utile were inspired by the scale and character of the existing residential buildings on Broadway, the project is designed to resemble a collection of eight buildings of different sizes and architectural styles. Building heights transition from six stories along Broadway and Temple Sts.
to four stories adjacent to the abutting residential area.
The building design and location on the site creates an opportunity for two important new public spaces: a new civic pocket plaza on Broadway which establishes a significant part of the overall public realm design strategy and a new neighborhood pocket park on Sewall Street connected to the civic pocket plaza on Broadway via a landscaped pedestrian mews which will be publicly accessible at all times. Both have been designed by Future Green Studios.
The pocket plaza creates a valuable civic space by providing a safe and active pedestrian space surrounded by retail café zones. Embedded street furniture will create defined gathering spaces and the plaza offers a permeable paving carpet featuring a grouping of trees. The park will include informal seating areas, sustainable trees and plantings, and intuitive play areas. Like the civic pocket plaza it will contribute to the site-wide stormwater management system and will be designed to promote native habitats, including birds and pollinators.
For more information on the future development of the site and parties involved, please visit https://www.299broadwaysomerville.com .
