Developers working with the Boston Housing Authority have obtained $70 million in backing for the first phase of a long-planned redevelopment of South Boston’s Mary Ellen McCormack public housing complex, one of the oldest public housing projects in America.
WinnCompanies and the BHA on Thursday said the financing would allow construction of a 112,000-square-foot building with 94 new apartments designated for low-income families who already live at the complex. Under a plan approved in 2023, Winn and the authority plan to raise $2 billion over the next two decades to redevelop the entire 30-acre complex into a mixed-income, mixed-use property with 3,300 apartments, retail space, and a community center.
The first phase, dubbed Building A, will also include a new Veterans Park with an accessible tot lot, bike lane, new trees, and reconfigured streets safer for pedestrians.
“For almost nine decades, Mary Ellen McCormack has been a cornerstone of Boston’s commitment to affordable housing,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement. “Today, we take a major step forward in ensuring that this historic community remains a vibrant, inclusive home for generations to come.”
Tenants have been involved in planning the entire project, according to Carol Sullivan, executive director of the Mary Ellen McCormack Task Force, a resident advocacy group. “I am very proud of this partnership and cannot wait to see the smiles on the residents’ faces when they move into their new, affordable homes,” Sullivan said in a statement.
WinnCompanies chief executive Gilbert Winn said the redevelopment project would be a model for similar projects across the country. “This first building jumpstarts an ambitious and inspired undertaking many years in the making that will ultimately give rise to a new mixed-income and mixed-use neighborhood,” Winn said in a statement.
Ed Flynn, who represents the McCormack area on the City Council, said the redevelopment’s new park and community center will offer improvements to benefit all South Boston residents. “I couldn’t be more excited to see it through to completion in 2026,” Flynn said in an email.
The project’s financing, $62 million for the building and $8 million for infrastructure, came from a variety of sources including a construction loan from Bank of America, federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit and Energy Tax Credit equity from Bank of America, a tax-exempt bridge loan and tax-exempt first mortgage loan from MassHousing, and a subordinate loan from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund maintained by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing & Livable Communities.
The McCormack project, built during the Great Depression, currently includes 1,016 deeply subsidized apartments across 35 buildings. All current residents will have the right to occupy new apartments as the project proceeds.
A South Boston public housing complex may be getting a $2 billion redevelopment The $1.4-billion-plus redevelopment of Boston’s largest public housing complex is finally underway
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