Boston Redevelopment Authority approves Nuestra Comunidad Development Corp. and Windale Developers, Inc.'s Bartlett Place

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) voted unanimously to approve Bartlett Place, a proposed mixed housing and commercial development to be developed by a partnership between local developers Nuestra Comunidad Development Corp. and Windale Developers, Inc. The Bartlett Place project is located on the site of the abandoned MBTA Bartlett bus yard on Washington St. adjoining Dudley Sq. at the base of Fort Hill. Windale and Nuestra plan to build 323 new homes, with 129 of them to be sold to new homeowners. Bartlett Place will be economically diverse, with 148 homes to be rented or sold at market rates, 70 to be sold or rented to moderate-income residents and the balance to low-income households. This would make Bartlett Place both the largest homeownership development and largest market-rate rental development in Roxbury's history. The Bartlett Place team combines a for-profit developer, Windale, with a local nonprofit, Nuestra. Windale brings to the project a track record of building and selling over 100 high-quality homes in Roxbury over the last decade, for both market-rate and moderate-income buyers. According to Nuestra executive director David Price, Nuestra brings its own experience in providing homeownership housing, having built and sold over 150 homes in that same period in Roxbury and Dorchester. Over the past 15 years, Windale and Nuestra each have exceeded 60% for MBE contracting dollars and 60% for employing workers of color in our projects, according to Price. The first building at Bartlett Place could start construction as early as the end of 2014, according to Windale Developers president Arnold Johnson.