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A proposal to convert a 1920s phone-company building and adjacent properties in Boston’s Chinatown into an apartment building, ground-floor retail space, and a new public library received the first place award in the ninth annual Greater Boston Affordable Housing Development Competition.

The First-Place Chinatown Crossing Team: Pictured, from the left, are Ken Willis, vice president and director of housing and community investment at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, and members of the winning Chinatown Crossing team at the awards ceremony.

Sponsored by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston; Boston Society of Architects/AIA; Kevin P. Martin & Associates, P.C.; Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association; and ICON Architecture, Inc, the 2009 competition paired student teams from local universities with developers to create proposals for affordable housing.

In an April 28 awards ceremony at Goulston & Storrs in Boston, keynote speaker Sandra Brooks Henriquez, administrator and chief executive officer of the Boston Housing Authority, offered commentary on a broad selection of affordable housing sites developed by the Boston Housing Authority.

In her closing remarks, Ms. Henriquez urged the students to consider working in the public sector, noting that today’s public housing has a significant but often unheralded impact on the lives of city residents.

In commenting on this year’s competition winner, the judges cited Chinatown Crossing’s success in tying its design to the surrounding community, its strong financials, and its success in meeting community needs for affordable housing and a new branch library.

Members of the Chinatown Crossing team were graduate students Daniel Daou, Laura Delgado, Christopher Gaudet, Haley Heard, Aditi Mehta, Kristen Simonson, David Teng (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Samuel Lee (Harvard University). Leading the developer team was Janelle Chan of the Asian Community Development Corporation in Chinatown, while the design mentor was Kendra Halliwell of Icon Architecture, Inc. The team’s faculty advisor was Tunney Lee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and its financial mentor was Michael Rosenberg of Bank of America Rhode Island, N.A.

Architectural rendering of the mixed-use development proposed for Boston's Chinatown by the 2009 first-place Chinatown Crossing team.

Awarded the second-place prize was St. Polycarp Village – Phase II, a proposal to provide new housing for families and seniors in a mixed-income community on the site of a former parochial school in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville. Awarded the third-place prize was Uptown on Dudley, a proposal to create a dual-site, affordable, mixed-use development adjacent to Boston’s Dudley Square. South Village at Chelmsford, a proposal to create a mixed-use, mixed-income development on a site in Chelmsford, received the honorable mention award.

The first place winner received a $10,000 prize, while the second place winner received $6,000 and the third place winner $2,500. Each award is shared equally between the student team and the developer.

Students from Harvard University (Graduate School of Design, Business School, and Kennedy School of Government), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Center for Real Estate, School of Architecture, Sloan School of Management, Department of Urban Studies and Planning), Tufts University, and Boston Architectural College participated in this year’s competition. An addition to this year’s competition was participation bystudents from Boston Architectural College, which created a studio course for competition participants.