Long-planned towers could soon rise along Morrissey Boulevard – The Boston Globe
The Boston Planning and Development Agency board last week approved the towers as the first phase of the nine-acre master plan, which itself won initial approval in December 2023 with a different development team. The original vision for first phase was two life-science laboratories, but the Copper Mill team pivoted after taking over from Center Court last year.
“The most acute need was housing,” said Andrew Flynn, the chief executive of Copper Mill and formerly the chief executive at housing developer Scape USA, in an interview.
The project is among the largest housing developments approved in Boston in the past several years, following the BPDA board’s 2023 approval of Dorchester Bay City, a massive, 21-building complex across Morrissey Blvd. that would include with 1,957 residential units. Dorchester Bay City has not yet started construction.
One-fifth of the homes at 75 Morrissey Blvd. will be set aside for residents making less than the area median income. That includes a range between 60 “micro studio” units of a little more than 400 square feet, with rent at $1,244 a month, and six three-bedroom units with expected rent of $2,057 monthly.
The project will also include a three-level, 414-space underground parking garage and 6,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The ground level retail stores will have deployable flood barriers at their entrances, said Phil Casey of architecture firm CBT in Boston. In a worst-case scenario, Casey said, the floor heights of the retail stores could be raised to manage future flooding. Beyond that ground-level flood mitigation, the site will be raised by five feet to ward off water from a routinely flooded Morrissey Boulevard.
Flynn knows those flood waters personally. A graduate of Boston College High School, which sits just across the street from the 75 Morrissey site, he recalled upperclassmen driving past younger students, walking from the MBTA JFK-UMass Red Line station, and splashing them with puddled water. It was important to incorporate flood protection at the 75 Morrissey site at the start of design, he said.
“It’s not something you can do as an afterthought,” Flynn said. “It has to be one of the leading design elements.”
Copper Mill aims to start demolition of the vacant television studio at 75 Morrissey Blvd. later this year and ground-up construction of the first of the 18-story towers in 2026. Flynn said the firm has not formally marketed the project to investors, but intends to engage with capital markets now that the development’s first phase has secured BPDA board approval.
Chicago-based real estate investment firm POB Capital, which through an entity for years has owned the nine-acre stretch of 35-75 Morrissey Blvd. (including the former television studio, former Beasley Media station and Star Market), will likely partner “in some form” with Copper Mill throughout development, Flynn said.
After an extended period of hesitancy to allocate large pots of money to specific projects, institutional investors are tentatively starting to crack open their pocketbooks. Flynn said institutional investors are increasingly eyeing opportunities to fund multifamily residential projects — especially those near transit — in “flight to quality” markets like Boston.
“As they look at the spectrum, whether it’s … industrial, office, hospitality, or across geographies domestically, I think Boston multifamily is something that seems to have a bullseye on it,” Flynn said.
Catherine Carlock can be reached at catherine.carlock@globe.com. Follow her @bycathcarlock.