A partnership between the Traggorth Companies and The Neighborhood Developers (TND) will soon file for a project that includes 42 units of affordable and market rate apartments on a long-vacant property at 1001 Broadway – right on the Chelsea City Line.
Traggorth and TND once worked together to create the Box District, with Traggorth being responsible for the Atlas Lofts project within that district.
Dave Traggorth said he and TND have been in some extensive outreach with Mill Hill neighbors regarding the project for some time this month. After an initial proposal to neighbors before July 4th, the developers went back to the table to make some tweaks.
Those changes were reported back in a public meeting on Monday, July 16, in the Mary C. Burke Complex.
“Our current plan calls for 42 residential units over about 1,100 sq. ft. of retail space and a lobby and community areas,” he said. “There will also be 42 parking spaces on the ground floor. That’s the program we’re proposing. That’s after we got feedback from our neighbors along Clinton Street.”
The input included some design initiatives, such as keeping the building lower on Clinton Street than on the Broadway side.
On Broadway, he said, there would be a five-story structure with four residential floors over one floor of parking. On the Clinton Street side, there would be two levels of residential over one level of parking.
“The idea is to keep the height as low as possible on the Clinton Street and provide a buffer between the Broadway corridor and the Clinton Street residential district,” he said.
Per input from the neighbors, the developers have now included some market rate units, where before there were none.
That means there will be 33 affordable units (at 60 percent AMI, or about $55,000 per year for a family) and nine market rate units in the building.
Traggorth said there is a big demand for affordable housing in Chelsea.
“There’s a strong demand here for affordable housing,” he said. “TND is getting ready to draw for the Arcadia (French Club) project and they have 1,400 applications from Chelsea residents for 32 units. There’s just a tremendous demand for affordable housing here to prevent displacement. We’ve heard it loud and clear.”
Meanwhile, one great amenity for the public as a result of the potential development is 3,000 sq. ft. of public open space along the waterfront at Mill Creek.
“It’s part of reclaiming the waterfront and will connect with the hotel waterfront project and the playground further up at the Commons,” he said. “We’re looking at options and we want to start that conversation with the community about their vision for that open space and what would work there. Kudos to the City for having that waterfront vision plan.”
That waterfront plan was conducted in 2016 and called for opening up the waterfront to the public at most potential development sites, such as 1001 Broadway.
Traggorth said they would be filing with the City very soon to start the formal review process. The meetings and neighborhood input were all pre-file work that he said they wanted to do before beginning the process.