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Long-planned project north of Andrew Square starts moving forward again

The plan would eventually put 4 million square feet of housing and commercial space on 21 acres along Dorchester Avenue

By Catherine Carlock Globe Staff,Updated June 5, 2023, 4:27 p.m.
A formerly industrial stretch of Dorchester Avenue in South Boston — seen here in 2015 — could be transformed under plans filed with the city last week to put a large mixed-use campus along the west side of the busy roadway.Craig F. Walker

The developers who have long sought to transform the industrial yards just north of the Andrew Red Line station in South Boston are back in front of the city with a new master plan calling for a nearly 4 million-square-foot “neighborhood” to be built over multiple phases along Dorchester Avenue.

Core Investments late last week filed plans for On the Dot, a complex of 11 buildings in a 21-acre corridor from Andrew Square north to the South Boston Haul Road. Core is seeking permission to build six commercial buildings and five residential properties, all with underground parking. The commercial buildings’ uses could include research and development labs, “21st Century Industrial” or offices, along with ground-floor retail and other accessory uses, Core said in a recent filing to the Boston Planning and Development Agency.

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Core Investments Inc. declined to speak with The Boston Globe. John Cissel, the company’s president of development, said in a statement that the proposal for “a new On the Dot neighborhood” includes “a mix of uses that will meet the needs of 21st-century residents in this formerly industrial area.”

“Our team looks forward to continuing our work with the Andrew Square Civic Association, the city, and elected officials to make it a reality,” Cissel’s statement continued.

The 11-building project would be built over four phases.Stantec

The first phase would span nearly 2 million square feet across four buildings: a 325-unit apartment at 495 Dorchester Ave., and three commercial buildings at 65 and 75 Ellery St. and 505 Dorchester Ave., along with new open space. The balance of the remaining projects — around another 2 million square feet in four residential buildings, and three office/lab properties — would be built over three subsequent phases, the filing to the BPDA shows.

There’s no timeline laid out in the new BPDA filings, but projects of this size and magnitude often take at least a decade or more to build.

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Two existing industrial properties at 2 and 4 Alger St. are being repositioned as modern flex and industrial space, but would eventually be razed to make way for new projects. The 4 Alger St. property was once pitched as a last-mile distribution center for Amazon, but faced pushback from the BPDA, which in 2020 said the proposed facility did not align with the recommendations laid out in PLAN: South Boston Dorchester Avenue. That plan, approved in 2016, envisions larger-scale mixed-use development along this corridor.

The project team is scheduled to present to the Boston Civic Design Commission, the city’s voluntary architecture review board, at a virtual meeting on Tuesday evening. Other projects on the agenda include the Druker Co.’s two-building lab proposal at 1033-1055 Washington St. in the South End — a site adjacent to where the firm has been approved to develop another lab — along with a 170-unit apartment proposal at 25-39 Harvard Ave. in Allston. The commission is scheduled to vote on three projects: a 220-unit apartment building at 1141 Bennington St. in East Boston, a 254-unit residential building at 76 Ashford St. in Allston, and a 319,750-square-foot lab for the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute at 22 Drydock Ave. in the Seaport.

Core Investments has plans for a large-scale development across 21 acres in South Boston, just north of the MBTA Red Line Andrew station.Stantec

Catherine Carlock can be reached at catherine.carlock@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @bycathcarlock.

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