Saint Polycarp Parish to become Saint Polycarp Village Apartments

By Jack Nicas

With shovels planted firmly in the soil that will soon give rise to a mixed-use affordable housing village, the Somerville Community Corporation and city and state officials symbolically broke ground last week on a project to transform the former Saint Polycarp Parish. Danny LeBlanc said the three and a half acre site would be utilized to create 24 affordable housing units and 6,000 square feet of retail space.

Courtney Koslow, SCC’s manager of the project, said the group purchased the Saint Polycarp campus in March of 2006 for $4 million. The space had been vacant since 2002, and with the lack of available land in Somerville, it was a perfect location for the SCC’s latest project, she said.

The site is located at 460 Mystic Ave. at the intersection with Temple Street. Koslow said the SCC purchased two plots of land; one is the former Saint Polycarp site, and the other, which LeBlanc called “the rectangle,” is across the paved path and will be the location of the second phase of SCC’s two-phased project. Leblanc said the community development group is “aggressively working on plans” for phase two and that they would be made public in the next several months.

Koslow said families earning less than 60 percent of the average area income would be eligible to enter next spring’s lottery for a chance to rent one of the new residential units. LeBlanc said 18 apartments would be up for grabs, as four units are reserved for clients of the Somerville Mental Health Department and two are for homeless individuals.

The new building will have one, two and three-bedroom apartments, with prices ranging from $900 to $1,200 per month for a three-bedroom unit, Koslow said.

At the ceremony, LeBlanc thanked the city for its cooperation and funding for the project. Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone said the city contributed $800,000 for each phase of the development and $80,000 to Just-A-Start, a Cambridge-based non-profit organization that purchased the former Saint Polycarp rectory.

Peter Graham, Just-A-Start’s director of housing development, said the organization is transforming the rectory, which is located adjacent to where the affordable housing village will be, into “transitional housing for parenting and pregnant teens.” Just-A-Start is moving the 20-year old program from its current home across the street because SCC needs the space for the second phase of the project. The new building’s grand opening is Monday, Sept. 15, and families move in on Sept. 17, he said.

Curtatone said, “[The SCC’s] project is critical to keeping families in Somerville and providing a continuum of housing for our residents.” He said next spring’s reconstruction of the road and sidewalks on Temple Street “goes hand-in-hand with these great projects.”

Clark Ziegler, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, was impressed with the teamwork between the city and SCC. “It’s not an adversarial relationship, but a collaborative one,” he said, “which it really needs to be to get anything done.”

Ziegler said the Massachusetts Housing Authority gave the SCC a $2.5 million permanent mortgage loan with fixed rates to help the SCC pay off other loans over a 20-year period.

National banks also helped fund the project. Christopher R. Harris, The Bank of New York Mellon’s Boston-branch Community Investment Officer, and Maria F. Barry, Bank of America’s Northeast Community Development Executive, said each bank contributed close to $2 million in construction loans.

As for the former Saint Polycarp Church itself, it will remain standing. Koslow said the catholic chapel would be adopted by the Haitian community and become the Missionary Church of the Haitian Community.

Koslow believes the entire project will spark growth in the area. She said, “This is going to bring a lot of life into this little corner of the community.”