By
Robert O’Malley
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| Construction
site of the AHP-funded Dudley Village initiative on the
Roxbury-Dorchester line in Boston. |
Since its founding 28 years ago, the Dorchester Bay Economic
Development Corporation has developed almost 1,000 units of housing
in Roxbury and Dorchester. Much of this housing has been built
along the Dudley Corridor, in an area where Roxbury and Dorchester
meet.
Dorchester Bay operates at the opposite end of the Dudley Corridor from Nuestra
Comunidad Development Corporation and Madison Park Development Corporation. “You
might see us as the two bookends of the Dudley Corridor,” says Jeanne Du
Bois, executive director of Dorchester Bay. “Starting from the two business
nodes (Dudley Square and Uphams Corner) — one going east and the other
going west — we are about to meet.”
Ms. Du Bois says her organization takes a holistic approach to community development
by focusing on housing, economic development, and social issues. “You work
with the neighbors before, during, and after the development,” she says. “You
listen and build new leadership so that people feel they have control over their
building, their block, and their business district. You build up the power of
the neighborhood.”
In recent months, Dorchester Bay has begun construction of Dudley Village, a
multiphased development along Dudley Street that includes 50 rental apartments
affordable to very low- and low-income households. The development includes five
new four-story buildings and ground-floor retail space on parcels donated by
the city and on the former site of a bar where four homicides occurred.
Dudley Village Phase 1 received a $300,000 grant and a $575,459 subsidized advance
from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston’s
Affordable Housing Program (AHP) through member Citizens Bank of Massachusetts,
while Dudley Village Phase 2 received a $300,000 AHP grant through member Bank
of America Rhode Island, N.A.
“Dudley Village is the jewel in the crown,” says Ms. Du Bois. “It
fills the hole on Dudley Street and completes the Dudley Corridor.
It will be built on a long block that runs from Cottage Street down to the Salvation
Army’s new Kroc Center at Upham’s Corner and the Fairmont Rail Line
stop. The new Kroc community center will be the new anchor for the area.”
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| Neighborhood
bordering the site of Dudley Village. |
The community center — which will include gyms, swimming pools, and a theater — will
be built by the Salvation Army with funds donated by the late Joan Kroc, widow
of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc.
Like other community development corporations (CDCs), Ms. Du Bois says her organization
anticipates building more mixed-income developments in the future as property
costs escalate. But she adds that Dudley Village is
a low-income development.
“If you work with a community and get consensus,
you can figure out a way to pay for almost anything,” she
says. “Our factory project at Savin Hill was a $15 million
effort with 17 funders.”
Ms. Du Bois says Dorchester Bay is about to undertake a massive
new phase of development along the recently revived Fairmont Rail
Line, a nine-mile commuter service that runs from Hyde Park to
South Station. “I would say our biggest
strategy for the next 10 years will be major transit-oriented development up
and down the Fairmont Rail Line, which we are hoping to get upgraded to rapid
transit” she says. “We are buying properties up and
down the line and recently won, along with other CDCs, $100 million
in funding to create more stops along the line.”
Like other community organizations in Roxbury, Ms. Du Bois is concerned
about gentrification, particularly as the new Fairmont rail service
is expanded. “We
have bought up a lot of land and are trying to make sure speculation
and the flipping of property is slowed,” she says. “We
have been smart about combining with other CDCs down the Fairmont
line to raise money to buy properties.”
Although she sees major progress in reviving the Roxbury and Dorchester
neighborhoods, she says the redevelopment still has a ways to go. “This was a disinvested
blighted neighborhood with a lot of tensions,” says Ms. Du Bois. “We
still have a high murder rate, we still have youth problems, and
we need more jobs.”T |
