Last week, we saw the future of Hub apartment development in the newly opened Maxwell's Green on Lowell Street in Somerville. Someday, when coffee cups of gasoline cost more than rigging a Fenway sellout, when driving becomes as taboo as simple human decency on the T, it will behoove people to rent or to buy in residential buildings near mass transit stops. Maxwell's Green is one of those. The newly under-construction 225 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain is another. An official ground-breaking is now scheduled for it for May 12, a week from tomorrow.
Two-twenty-five Centre Street is the first and largest component of the city-backed, 14-building Jackson Square redevelopment, where JP meets Roxbury, that's been at least 10 years in the making. This largest component will have 103 rental units, including 35 affordable ones; more than 16,000 square feet of commercial and retail space; an off-street parking structure; and what its blog (it has a blog) calls "dramatic landscape improvements." Ten of the affordable rental units will be reserved for extremely low-income families, and the overall project costs are an estimated $50 million.
Most importantly, perhaps (no, not perhaps, just most importantly), is that the new building—the entire Jackson Square project, really—rests next to the Orange Line stop at Jackson Square. Limitless transit in a car-less future. We're being a tad dramatic, we know, but developers and the governments that might subsidize them project-to-project already put a premium on transit-oriented development. They see where we're headed.
· Groundbreaking to Kick Off $250 Million Jackson Square Redevelopment [Boston.com]
· 225 Centre Street
· Somerville's Downward-Facing Doghouse and Hub's Apt. Future [Curbed Boston]
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