Life begins at 90
The McCormack complex in South Boston, one of the oldest public housing projects in the US, is on the verge of a massive redevelopment
It has been nearly 90 years since the massive Mary Ellen McCormack public housing complex, one of the oldest public housing projects in America, first sprouted in South Boston. Long seen as a symbol of rough-and-tumble Southie — it was the childhood home of Whitey Bulger — the McCormack is now on the verge of a total redevelopment.
The Boston Planning & Development Agency is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to green-light the $1.1 billion first phase of the redevelopment, which is slated to take place over the next decade, until 2032, constituting one of the largest public housing redevelopment projects in Boston’s history.
“The question for this project has always been: ‘How do we leverage the value of the land while keeping our folks on the land, and keeping these households on the land for generations to come?’” said Kenzie Bok, head of the Boston Housing Authority. “I think we’ve achieved that.”
The plan by developer WinnCompanies envisions transforming a rundown complex in one of the city’s most troublesome flood zones into a 30-acre, 3,300unit mixed-use development that could help revitalize its stretch of South Boston,
‘The housing is ... desperately needed, but we want this project to be about more than new apartment buildings.’
GILBERT WINN, chief executive, WinnCompanies
between Andrew Square and Moakley Park.
The BPDA will vote on the master plan for phase one of the redevelopment, which will focus on the northern portion of the site and the construction of 1,310 units, including 529 public housing units, in eight new residential buildings, as well as a new community center.
It would be the first of two large phases, which will eventually replace each of the existing 1,016 Housing Authority units, and more than double the total number of units on the site, adding an additional roughly 2,300 mixed-income units. The full project will cost around $2 billion.
Cities across Massachusetts lack funding for public housing, so increasingly, they are turning to models like the one Winn and the Housing Authority are using: build new apartments that can be rented at market rates on public housing sites in order to finance the redevelopment of public housing units. A similar model is being used to raze and rebuild the Bunker Hill public housing development in Charlestown.
WinnCompanies, which said the project is the largest in the company’s history, expects to complete the McCormack redevelopment in 2043, though its second phase still requires additional review and
permitting. The finished project will include 18 new buildings, a redesigned streetscape, flood resiliency provisions, and retail space.
Winn was first chosen for the redevelopment in 2017, and has been meeting with residents and community leaders in the years since to conceptualize a project they hope will breathe new life into the complex.
“The housing is important and desperately needed, but we want this project to be about more than new apartment buildings,” said Winn’s chief executive, Gilbert Winn. “We have worked hard alongside the BHA and the residents to plan a redevelopment that will create a community of opportunity.”
Originally known as Old Harbor Village, the McCormack was built in the 1930s, and like much of Boston’s public housing portfolio, has fallen into rough shape over the years.
Winn projects the first phase of the McCormack project will cost around $1.1 billion, including $110 million for public infrastructure construction, and the developer is relying on significant private equity, more than $200 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credit funds, and $50 million commitments from both the city and the state to finance it.
Officials have ensured intricate phasing to minimize the number of residents who will have to temporarily move out of the complex, Bok said. For example, the first building to be constructed will contain 94 deeply affordable units. Shortly to follow will be a building with affordable units for seniors. So some residents will be able to move into the new buildings before their existing unit is demolished. And officials pledged that all current residents will have homes in the newly constructed buildings.
Carol Sullivan, executive director of the Mary Ellen McCormack Task Force, a resident advocacy group, said residents are pleased with the project, and want to move into new units as soon as possible.
“Residents have been looking forward to construction starting since Winn was selected in 2017,” she said. “They want the project to move quickly so they can move into their new units.”
Sullivan said residents are particularly excited about the additional open space and ease of access to the rest of the neighborhood, as well as transit stations, that will be created by Winn’s planned redesign of the area’s streets.
The site is tricky to redevelop, Winn said, because it is in the middle of a flood zone, one of Boston’s worst, that is expected to see frequent and severe flooding over the next 50 years as the climate crisis worsens.
The city already has plans in place to reinforce Moakley Park, just east of the site, with berms and raised landscapes to help mitigate the flooding.
Each of the new buildings at the McCormack site will be elevated two feet above the projected flooding level for 2070, and Winn plans to have graded planters and other sloped patches of green to help combat potential flooding on the site.
By the time the project is complete, it will be part of a neighborhood transformed. To the north of Moakley Park, the Old Colony public housing complex is nearing the end of a long redevelopment process. And the proposed Dorchester Bay City project, which would fill a 36acre swath just south of the park with shiny new buildings, is proposed to be under construction then.
“As we think about what can be shiny and new in that part of the city, we want something that’s there for the families that are already there now,” Bok said. “So they can benefit from the neighborhood’s transformation.”