With all the discussion around housing or lack thereof in MA, I decided to post this. Delete if already posted.

02/10/2023

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that the Beverly Planning Board on Monday night will set the date for a public hearing on this proposal but will not discuss the proposal on Monday.BEVERLY — A developer has proposed building a three-story apartment building on top of the MBTA parking garage on Rantoul Street.

Barnat Development President Sarah Barnat said the building would be connected to the current Holmes Beverly apartment building and would have 70 apartments.

“It’s a creative and thoughtful way of adding more units around the train station,” Barnat said.

The MBTA garage opened in 2014 across the street from the Beverly Depot and was designed to support up to four levels of development on top of it. Barnat’s company signed a 99-year-lease with the MBTA for the right to build on the land in front of the garage and above it.

The Holmes Beverly apartment building was built in front of the garage at 110 Rantoul St. and opened in 2019. It has 67 apartments, with the restaurant Frank located on the ground floor.

According to an application filed with the city, the new building would be a three-story, 70,000-square-foot addition to the Holmes Beverly building. It would have 70 apartments, with a least eight of them qualified as affordable housing.

The two buildings would be connected by an internal pedestrian passageway. Barnat said the new building would not be higher than the existing Holmes Beverly building.

The proposal comes as several landowners and developers have filed applications with the city in anticipation of possible zoning changes that would limit the height of new buildings in the downtown area. Barnat said she filed the plans “in order to secure the as-of-right zoning we currently have.”

“At a time when new, transit-oriented housing is needed to support our growing economy, it is critical to move forward with long-planned for projects,” she said.

The Beverly Planning Board on Monday night will set a date to hold a public hearing on the proposal but will not discuss the proposal on Monday.

Brilliant. Apartment buildings near MBTA sounds excellent.

This is exactly why I fled this dump of a town as soon as I could. Cahill is a ruinous mayor and people still keep voting him in, WHY. I hope it falls into the ocean!!

Seems like a good idea to me, what's wrong with it?

You're arguing against building apartments for what reason? I don't see the problem.

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Interesting, but I don't think the garage has the extra support available to support a whole building on top of it. And the lives of the people who live in the garage would also depend on the upkeep of the garage which has been questionable.

Obligatory:

wHaT aBouT pArKinG?!

wHaT aBouT tHe nEiGhboRhOoD cHaRaCtEr?!

Have you ever been in Rantoul?

Imagine if they tried this in Salem with the city owned garage at the mall! That thing is a fucking mess.

It's one thing if it were affordable housing but none of those buildings around Beverly Depot are anywhere near affordable.

2br ranging between 2.7k and 3.5k and 1br all over 2k. I get it's near the commuter rail but that's steep.

>And the lives of the people who live in the garage

What people live in the garage?

Also skimming the article before commenting might be helpful...

"The MBTA garage opened in 2014 across the street from the Beverly Depot and was designed to support up to four levels of development on top of it. "

That is the point of the article, to have people live over the garage.

It's a nice town and you're renting right next to the Commuter Rail that can get you into Boston in 30 minutes. Not to mention there's been lots of plans to further develop the other sides of the tacks with affordable housing but people keeping NIMBYing it.

Will they reinforce the existing hollow building to prevent structure collapse? Parking garages collapse when snow isn't properly removed from the top floor, so on face value I question if a 3 story building would be practical.

I’m glad that you left, Salem and Greater Boston are better off without you. Living in an urban area and hating urban development is nonsensical. Being opposed to transit-oriented development is ridiculous.

Good riddance!

This attitude is exactly why we are so deep in a housing shortage. Because people want to nitpick every development and hold them to unreasonable standards.

We need all kinds of new housing, not just affordable housing. Setting unrealistic quotas for affordable units only makes new housing more expensive to build. We need to remove barriers for new construction, not create new ones.

I would be a little more amenable to the project myself if a larger portion of the available new residencies were designated low income. Especially when the financing gets murky.

You said the people who live in the garage.

The internet!

Yup, like locusts the overbuilders, the woke BS, and the destruction of what once was a nice town they have caused. It's people like you that have contributed to it with your nasty attitudes and total disregard of others. You can keep that town because all those who made it a great community have left.

Should be too much CO2

If it was great community why did they leave?