Apartment project is reborn as condos in a new S. Boston
The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a big residential project on D Street in South Boston six years ago, but it never got built. Yesterday, the board approved the project again, but you'd barely recognize it.
The location is still across D Street from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, which wasn't even built in 2000. But almost everything else is different.
There's a new owner, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. The residences were going to be apartments, 695 of them; now, they will be 585 condos in a range of buildings from six to 17 floors.
But the biggest difference is the neighborhood. There is one today, where it barely existed in September 2000.
``Over a billion dollars has been put into D Street," said Peter Palandjian, chief executive of Intercontinental. ``That attracted us to the neighborhood."
The neighborhood now includes a new building for
``It's a lot less `pioneering' than it was two years ago," said Nicholas J. Iselin, director of development and construction for Intercontinental.
Still, the project will now move forward just as the condo market in the city is in a funk, while the apartment market is stronger. But Palandjian insisted time is on Intercontinental's side: With work scheduled to begin in spring, the condos won't be ready for two years -- enough time to ride out a down cycle.
Moreover, Palandjian said his residences, midway between old South Boston and the new waterfront neighborhood, won't be selling for the top-shelf luxury prices that housing at Fan Pier, for example, is expected to command.
He estimated one- and two-bedroom units will sell in the $500,000 and $600,000 range. ``They're luxury units for the everyman, with pricing that's much more affordable than what's out there," he said.
The new four-building complex will take up four blocks on 5.6-acres on the southeast side of the street, from 371 to 401 D Street. A largely glass tower closest to the waterfront, 401 D, will rise to 12 and 17 stories, but the three buildings closer to the existing South Boston residential blocks will be lower -- six floors, and mostly made of brick that befits local tradition.
``It really represents the flavor of the old neighborhood. It's not one monolithic block," said Vincenzo Giambertone, project designer for ADD Inc. of Cambridge, the architect.
The former owners, including Cathartes Investments, had planned an underground parking garage, which would have cost more than $20 million and had to be built up front, Palandjian said.
Intercontinental redesigned the project to put one level of parking underground and a garage above ground, hidden from view by the residences and separating them from an industrial block behind D Street.
``That kind of unlocked the economics of the deal to get it done," he said. Parking has been reduced to 724 spaces, from 778.
Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com. 