Hyde Park development will drop nearly 250 apartments near Readville Station

A two-building development in Boston’s Hyde Park will bring 247 apartments to a site that a truck maintenance facility and a warehouse currently occupy near the Readville commuter-rail station.

The project at 36-40 Sprague Street was supposed to be much bigger. The Noannet Group, a Boston-based developer, had proposed a four-building campus with 521 housing units, including condos, and features such as coworking space and a big steel-frame sign reading “Readville” to trumpet that area of Hyde Park.

Some local opposition to that November 2016 plan led to curtailments that eventually resulted in the two-building, 247-unit project that the Boston Planning and Development Agency approved in mid-September. Each building will be five stories, and they will include 14,000 square feet of new retail as well as 3,000 square feet of community workspace.

Some 107 of the apartments are expected to be one-bedrooms, with a further 88 two-bedrooms, 44 studios, and eight three-bedrooms. Thirty-two will be income-restricted, and there will be parking for 251 vehicles. Amenities are set to include fitness facilities, a courtyard, and a daycare, according to the BPDA.

The Noannet Group is also providing new traffic signals to the area as part of the approval.

It was traffic in part that fueled opposition to the original plans, with some residents concerned about more cars on the Readville roads. Others were concerned about the sheer number of new units in an enclave that is one of the few truly affordable ones left in Boston proper. Hyde Park’s median one-bedroom rent was $1,750 by the end of August, significantly lower than Boston’s $2,500 overall, according to listings site Zumper.

It remains unclear what the rents might be for the Sprague Street project. But it’s certainly a prime location transit-wise: It can be a roughly 20-minute commuter-rail ride from Readville Station to South Station in downtown Boston.

Interestingly, the 36-40 Sprague approval came the same week that another developer significantly scaled back a multi-building project near the Green Line’s Riverside terminus in Newton. There the opposition’s concerns are apparently similar: too much new traffic and the potential to upend existing real estate norms.

The Noannet Group has not responded to a request for comment about the construction timeline. Stay tuned.