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The new owners of the Exelon power plant property in South Boston are considering a mix of housing, offices, retail and possibly a hotel for the 14-acre site.
Redgate and Northbrook, Illinois-based Hilco Redevelopment Partners acquired the property in April for $24.25 million. They’re studying how to lay out new buildings for a mixed-use project that would include multifamily housing, offices, restaurants and cafés, service retail, and possibly a hotel in a few years, said Ralph Cox, a principal at Boston-based developers Redgate.
The main power plant structure likely will be demolished.
“We’re definitely looking to keep some buildings or at least a building, but probably not the big one,” Cox said. “To our knowledge it has no redeeming value, but there are a building or two that if structural or marketplace conditions dictate, we’re looking to assess that and see if it’s possible.”
Redgate has hired SG&A as land planners and environmental consultants Geosyntec to assess the condition of the 776 Summer St. property. After completing a structural assessment of the various buildings, the oldest of which was built in 1899, Redgate plans to file a formal proposal with the Boston Planning & Development Agency in early 2017, Cox said.
Encouraging public access is one of the primary design goals.
“We have to find the right balance to connect to the neighborhood and really open up the waterfront that hasn’t been open for the last 100 years,” said Cox, a former Massport real estate executive.
The site has a section of waterfront on the Reserved Channel. The property has constraints as well, including the ongoing construction of Massport’s new 3,100-foot Thomas J. Butler Freight Corridor, a two-lane haul road that will carry truck traffic to and from the Conley Container Terminal. The haul road runs along the waterfront edge of the Redgate property and will cross an embayment before connecting to Summer Street just south of the Summer Street bridge that spans the Reserved Channel.
At a pair of community meetings in South Boston, residents asked that the developers incorporate a 17,000-square-foot community arts center into the project. Arts and community groups are increasingly starved for meeting and program space in South Boston due to development pressures, South Boston Arts Association Co-Founder Dan McCole said this month.
Cox called the proposal a “wonderful” idea that fits into the goals of the developers.
“It’ll be a place that anybody who is living in the area will want to come and visit on a regular basis,” he said.
