Maura Healey delivers millions to boost downtown Boston housing revival

An effort to convert vacant office space into nearly new units of housing in downtown Boston has received a million backing from the Healey administration Gov Maura Healey is awarding the state funding to a pair of projects in Boston s office-to-residential conversion scheme that Mayor Michelle Wu says she hopes will lead to greater downtown vibrancy and promotion for our local small businesses The Boston Planning Department has already approved the two projects one awarded million to create rental units at Milk St and the other awarded million to produce rental units at Court Square All together the conversion pilot project received applications to convert square feet of old office space to create housing units of which will be deemed affordable a Planning Department spokesperson narrated the Herald on Wednesday The BPDA board has approved nine projects with the plan s first applicant Franklin St slated to have tenants beginning to move in at the end of the summer the spokesperson added We need to build more housing across the state to lower costs for everyone Healey announced in a report on Wednesday That s why I directed my administration to identify every fund already available to us that could be turned into housing The Milk St project approved last month will renovate what is presently an -story office building into residential units including income-restricted while maintaining a ground-floor post office The Court Square project approved in March will also renovate an -story mixed-use office building into new homes of them income-restricted The apartments will include a mix of studios and one- and two-bedroom units while the building maintains its current ground-floor retail space These office-to-housing conversions at Milk Street and Court Square are exactly the kind of bold creative solutions we need to address our housing situation while breathing new life into underutilized spaces state Sen Lydia Edwards explained in a message The conversion plan received a -million state boost last summer with the Healey administration funding up to per affordable unit with a cap of million per project Wu commented at the time that the money would allow for a year-and-a-half extension of the scheme In her State of the City address this past March the mayor publicized the activity would expand to universities and employers looking to reactivate office buildings as dorms or workforce housing The Wu administration in the summer of informed that the initiative would offer a -year tax abatement to building owners who jumped at the chance to convert The discount was intended to offset the high cost associated with converting office space designed and engineered differently to residential uses The tax break could provide a strong incentive to encourage conversion personnel revealed