BRA airs its plans for Indigo Block, promises more time for comments

A rendering of the proposed Indigo Block's main building.

Uphams Corner residents got their first look at the Indigo Block redevelopment project at a Boston Redevelopment Authority meeting in late January, an early step in the public vetting of the proposal for a vacant neighborhood lot.

Last May, the city tapped a team headed by the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corp. to work up plans to redevelop the 65 East Cottage Street site. In its current form, Indigo Block comprises up to 80 apartments, 8 townhouse-style condos, and a building with about 20,000 square feet of light industrial-commercial space. It sits on the onetime property of the Maxwell Box Co., some three acres in all. The lot has been unoccupied since the city seized it for tax delinquency in 2011.

The project is at the stage of gathering community input, said BRA spokesman Nicholas Martin. The Jan. 21 meeting “was really just an opportunity for us and the development team to kind of inform the community broadly,” he said.

Martin said that initial feedback from the meeting involved some dissatisfaction over how effectively the community was notified.

“I understand that there were some people who wanted to come that were not able to,” he said, noting that the BRA will host another meeting.

The Indigo Block, so named for its proximity to the Uphams Corner stop on the Fairmount Line, sometimes referred to as the Indigo Line, would occupy 2.75 acres for mixed-use purposes. Community members have been vocally negative about previous proposals for the site, including a brief consideration as a municipal storage yard.

Early plans call for the apartment portion of the block to include 22 one-bedroom, 48 two-bedroom, and 10 three-bedroom units, with 44 of them reserved for families making at, or less than, 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), another 10 or so set aside for families between 61 percent and 80 percent AMI, and approximately 26 for families between 81 percent and 110 percent AMI. The eight townhouses will be sold at market rates, according to the proposal.

The two-story commercial-industrial building would front East Cottage Street and offer a combination of mezzanine and light industrial area sites – including loading bays – on the lower floor. The second floor is set aside for office space.

An Impact Advisory Group (IAG) would usually meet prior to community meetings for a project of this scale, Martin said, but the release of the proposal so near to the holidays complicated the scheduling. The advisory group is not yet set, although members have been nominated, he said. Community leaders may wish to propose additions to the group.

Notice issues and the lack of an established IAG have led BRA to extend the comment period for the project. It had been set to end this Friday, Feb. 5. Martin said a new closing date for comments has not been set but “the intent is to have a first IAG meeting and another public meeting before we decide to take any other action on the project.”

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