The next phase in the mega-redevelopment of Jackson Square includes 37 apartments and 12,000 square feet of commercial and civic space at the old Webb Building at 1542 Columbus Avenue and at a vacant lot next-door. Construction's expected to start by the end of the summer.
The phase is, of course, part of a huge 14-property redevelopment of the windswept square that is supposed to produce 425 new apartments plus up to 60,000 square feet of retail, office and civic space (plus a sports complex with a skating rink and an indoor turf field). The redevelopment has stumbled and stalled over the last decade, but the 103-unit, eminently transit-oriented 225 Centre Street got under way in 2012, and it looks like, given city and state support, that Jackson Square is not looking back. That's largely because the redevelopment goes beyond mere bricks and mortar. Per Casey Ross in The Globe:
The project will help to reunite Roxbury and Jamaica Plain after the neighborhoods were severed in the 1960s by demolition for the ill-fated inner-belt highway, which ran into strong community opposition and was never constructed. Several businesses and homes in the area were bulldozed, creating something of a no-man's land between the communities. Columbus Avenue has since turned into a high-traffic speedway, offering passersby little opportunity, or reason, to stop. Now there will be.
· Jackson Square Development Project Picking Up Steam [Globe]
· One Word: Transit-Oriented—JP's Jackson Square Is the Future [Curbed Boston]
· Our Coming Attractions archive [Curbed Boston]