Hyde Park, MA The Noannet Group has filed a Project Notification Form with the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) to create 500 new apartment residences with amenities including a new restaurant, on a site now occupied by warehouse and maintenance buildings on Sprague St. in the Readville neighborhood.

The 6.6-acre site, at 36-40 and 50-70 Sprague St., is adjacent to the MBTA’s Readville Commuter Rail Station, serving Fairmont and Franklin lines and making it a transit-oriented development. The commuter-rail lines connect to South Station and extend west to Rte. 495/Forge Park. The project location is also accessible to MBTA Bus Routes No. 32 and 33.

“The City of Boston is desperately in need of new housing designed not for the top or bottom ends of the income spectrum but for everyone in the middle,” said Jordan Warshaw, founder and principal of The Noannet Group. “By creating a development with over 500 new residences on an underutilized site surrounded by train tracks and directly adjacent to the Readville commuter rail station, we will not only help make a significant dent in the City’s middle income housing crisis but do it in a transit-oriented manner that will help minimize its impact on the surrounding community.”

The four buildings will be laid out more like a college campus than a conventional apartment complex, with more than 90% of the parking below the complex’s plaza level. Based on this layout, the buildings will be oriented around large lawns and green space areas, with nearly 2.5 acres of green space in total, plus a central plaza adjacent to the complex’ walkway to Readville Station.

Surrounding the plaza will be a prominently located two-story workshare space to encourage residents to work from home, a large gym with multipurpose rooms and a half-court basketball court, a coffee house, a sports lounge, and a child-care center. There will also be a dog run, a rooftop pool and hot tub, several barbeque areas, multiple courtyards with table seating and fire pits, a putting green and a bocce court.

The project will create new gathering areas for the greater Readville community. Many Bostonians do not even know of the existence of Sprague Pond, which for decades has been surrounded by industrial and private residential properties, but the new development will create a public park along the pond, featuring picnic areas, seating areas and walkways. 

At the pond edge of the campus will be a new restaurant, open to the public, and a community room/”pondside lounge” that will be available both to project residents and the community for public meetings and events.

The four buildings will be variously five to eight stories, ranging from 70 to 110 feet in height. Thirty-six percent of the campus will be landscaped green space. There will be parking for 532 vehicles, including 492 in covered garages and the rest for short-term use.

The project will be highly sustainable, with a goal of LEED Silver level certifiability at minimum, drought-tolerant landscaping that reduces irrigation, vegetative podium that reduces runoff, low-flow plumbing, and solar panels on all four buildings.

OMB Sprague LLC, an affiliate of The Noannet Group, plans 521 rental apartments, including 68, or 13 percent, at affordable levels. Existing now on the site are four 50+-year old warehouse and maintenance buildings, which will be demolished.

After the project is approved following public meetings and the BPDA’s Article 80 permitting process, construction is expected to begin in mid-2018, with a targeted opening of late 2019.

The architect is Bargmann Hendrie + Archetype, Inc., of Boston.

The Noannet Group was founded in 2011 with the mission of developing architecturally significant mixed-use, residential, and commercial buildings that enhance the communities in which they are located. Principal Jordan Warshaw is a 25-year industry veteran in the Boston area.