In 2020, POAH welcomed residents to the completed Phase One of Flat 9 at Whittier, the redevelopment of the Whittier Street Apartments in Roxbury, a public housing community which first opened in 1953. Learn more about the history of the site here.
Phase One included the demolition of 68 apartments and the construction of ninety-two 1-3 bedroom, mixed-income apartments in three new buildings at the original Whittier site. Phase One includes a new management office, community room, and outdoor recreational space. Phase One also created 76 additional new mixed-income apartments off-site, including 43 BHA-replacement units, nearby in Madison Park Village.
Phase One Summer 2020
Phase Two, completed in December 2021, created 52 mixed-income units, including 24 BHA replacement units. Forty-eight of the units are restricted for renters earning 30%, 50%, 60%, 80%, and 110% of Area Median Income, along with 4 unrestricted units.
The remainder of the BHA site will be redeveloped as Phase 3, which will include 172 apartments in a 12 story building, including approximately 9,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial retail and shared community space, roof decks, fitness and other shared community amenities, and landscaped outdoor space. Construction began in January 2023. The entire Whittier redevelopment is expected to be completed by spring 2025.
Flat 9 at Whittier is the winner of the 2020 Charles L. Edson Tax Credit Excellence Award in the HUD Housing Preservation Category.
The redevelopment was supported by a $30 million federal Choice Neighborhoods Initiative grant awarded by the Obama Administration. The grant incorporates strategies for Neighborhood, Housing, and People to provide a coordinated transformation for the community in and around the original housing development footprint.
- The Neighborhood Strategy seeks to break down barriers that isolate residents, to promote physical and social connections, and to link the neighborhood to the regional economy. There is a priority focus on creating a livelier streetscape, including a vibrant pedestrian corridor along Ruggles Street.
- The Housing Strategy aims to preserve affordability while creating a better balance of housing options in the neighborhood. This plan creates a livable site with outdoor play spaces, a mix of building types to accommodate diverse family needs, and new through-streets to re-integrate the site into the broader neighborhood.
- The People Strategy addresses a range of priority needs among public housing residents: income and asset building, health, education, and youth development. To support residents in these needs, Boston Housing Authority has partnered with the Whittier Better Together Collaborative (WBTC), which is a team of case managers dedicated to supporting residents in these areas through service coordination focused on leveraging the vast resources provided by community partners based in Roxbury and surrounding neighborhoods.
Once all three phases are completed, the redevelopment will replace 200 existing public housing rental apartments with 210 deeply affordable units and create 262 additional units of mixed-income rental housing and 9,000 square feet of commercial space. In total, 472 new moderate-income and market-rate housing will be built on-site and off-site.
