The city of Newton is working with Metro West Collaborative Development and Civico Development to turn the West Newton armory on Washington Street into affordable housing. CIVICO DEVELOPMENT.
The long-sought affordable housing development at the site of the historic city-owned armory in West Newton will move ahead after the Zoning Board of Appeals approved the project earlier this month.
The plan would create 43 affordable apartments in a new, four-story addition erected behind the castle-like headhouse on the property along Washington Street.
Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, who proposed in 2019 that the city acquire the property from the state for housing, hailed the zoning board decision.
“This achievement is the culmination of nearly four years of strategic planning, collaboration, and careful attention to the many aspects of sensitively revitalizing an iconic building to serve people needing deeply affordable apartments,” Fuller said in a statement.
In many housing developments, affordable units are often mixed with market-rate apartments to help finance construction and other costs. In the case of the armory project, the entire $29.8 million development will be devoted to affordable housing.
The project will include one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, 28 of them for households earning up to 60 percent of the area median income, which is $140,200 for a family of four in Newton, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The other 15 apartments will be available to households earning 30 percent of that income level.
The project would preserve the existing headhouse structure for community space and management offices for the property and also will include a 31-space underground parking lot, according to project fillings. The armory’s current field house would be demolished to make way for the residential addition.
Fuller has allocated about $5 million from local funds, including the Community Development Block Grant and Community Preservation Act money. The project also will be supported by a mix of federal and state grants, according to the city.
The armory, located on about three-quarters of an acre at 1135 Washington St., was designed by the architectural firm Mulcahy and McLaughlin in the Medieval Revival style and erected in 1910.
The building was long used by the National Guard, but by 2019, the state had offered it for sale for housing use. The site is next door to a Trader Joe’s, several MBTA bus stops, and just a few minutes’ walk to West Newton Square.
