FoxRock Removes Residential Units From Ross Lot Plans
FoxRock Properties no longer plans to include any residential units in its proposed development on the former Ross Lot in Quincy Center. The company will also no longer seek permission to construct a 20-story building on site.
In September, FoxRock went before the Planning Board with a proposal to construct a 150,000-square-foot office building, a 490-car garage, and the 20-story building containing 125 hotel rooms and 200 apartments.
At Wednesday’s Planning Board meeting, David Mahoney, the attorney representing FoxRock during the permitting process, withdrew the company’s request for a special permit to construct the 20-story building. Mahoney told the board the company would be removing the residential units from the project.
“There won’t be a residential component of the project any longer,” he said.
The company is still seeking a certificate of consistency for the overall project. Mahoney had sought a continuance of the public hearing on the certificate of consistency to December or January, allowing the developer time to revise its proposal for the site.
Board members, however, continued the public hearing on the certificate of consistency to Feb. 9. Gregory Galvin, the board’s vice chairman, said moving the hearing to February would give board members enough time to vet the latest proposal.
“It’s a significant project and if we get it right the first time, we won’t to keep continuing it,” he said.
Mahoney objected to the continuance to February.
“It’s not going to get approved in January, but it is very important to my client that it is heard in January for a variety of reasons,” he said.
FoxRock’s development would be located at 37R and 86 Parkingway, which is within the former Ross Lot in Quincy Center. The roughly triangular parcel – which is bounded by General Dunford Drive to the south, Granite Street to the north, General McConville Way to the east and the MBTA tracks to the west – contains 117,366 square feet of land and is located within the Quincy Center Zoning District-15, where buildings can be constructed 15 stories tall by-right and 20 stories high with a special permit.
FoxRock and Mayor Thomas Koch had negotiated a land disposition agreement, which the City Council approved in June 2019, allowing the company to acquire that portion of the Ross Lot from the city and to redevelop it. That LDA also allowed the company to buy out the city’s right of reverter at 114 Whitwell St., formerly home to Quincy Medical Center, freeing it up for a residential redevelopment. The developer agreed to pay the city $4.25 million as part of the pact.
FoxRock’s initial plans for the Ross Lot, as presented to the City Council in 2019, had called for the construction of 110 units of affordable or workforce housing on site.
Original Source: https://thequincysun.com/foxrock-removes-residential-units-from-ross-lot-plans/
