East Boston building that would add 145 apartments along Bremen Street advances

Welcome back to Critical Mass., in which Curbed Boston covers all the major development news in the region every week. This go-round includes the resurrection of a proposal for over the Mass. Pike. as well as hotel projects in downtown Boston, Back Bay, and the Seaport. Let’s check in. —Tom Acitelli, Curbed Boston editor

A development in busy, busy East Boston that would replace two auto-repair shops with a residential building scored approval from the Boston Planning and Development Agency. Up to six stories, 282-308 Bremen Street is due to include 145 apartments, including 21 income-restricted ones and 13 live-work units for qualified artists. There will also be bike parking for 145 and up to 61 parking spots as well as 3,200 square feet of retail.

The BPDA also signed off on a 34-unit, five-story condo building at 6 Glover Court in South Boston. Six of the units will be income-restricted. The agency also approved 100-110 Lincoln Street, a new five-story building in Brighton that will have 32 two-bedroom condos with 27 parking spots and 54 bike spaces.

And it approved 288-298 Tremont Street in Chinatown, a complex due to have 168 income-restricted apartments and condos as well as a 200-room hotel and a parking garage for the nearby Tufts Medical Center. The development—funded largely through the deal that allowed for the redevelopment of the Winthrop Square Garage into a skyscraper—will replace a city-owned parking lot. (What else is new?)

Other BPDA sign-offs for the week include 2147 Washington Street in Roxbury, a 74-unit apartment complex where 62 units will be income-restricted; and a six-story, 142-unit redevelopment of the J.J. Carroll apartments at 130 Chestnut Hill Avenue, also in Brighton. All units will be income-restricted for seniors. The same goes for a newly approved 30-unit building at 150 River Street in Mattapan.

Now to the hotel projects. The Mandarin Oriental at 776 Boylston Street in Back Bay has launched a four-month, $15 million renovation of all of its guest rooms and suites as well as the hotel’s 10,000 square feet of event space. The hotel will remain open during the work.

Elkus Manfredi Architects/Omni

In downtown Boston, the owner of the Onyx Hotel at 155 Portland Street is proceeding with plans for a nine-story, 77-room addition on an adjacent parking lot. Meanwhile, the ground-up, twin-tiered Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport is plotting its strategy for drawing guests and visitors once the 1,054-room inn opens in June 2021.

On to the Mass. Pike project. A developer has filed new preliminary plans with Boston officials to construct a 17-story, 430-sqiare-foot condo and hotel complex at the so-called Parcel 13 site where Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street meet at the turnpike. Plans for the site stretch back to the earlier half of the past decade.

Finally, that big Washington Village project in South Boston is proceeding apace. The development team thinks it can break ground this summer on the seven-building project with 746 condos and apartments. Stay tuned.