Brookfield JV to Develop Massachusetts’ Largest Mixed-Use Project
The duo paid $65 million for the former military installation.
Image courtesy of New England Development
A joint venture between Brookfield Properties and New England Development has paid $65 million to Washington Capital Management for the company’s land at the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station in Massachusetts.
Slated to become the largest mixed-use project in the state, the redevelopment will feature 6,500 housing units and approximately two million square feet of commercial and retail space. The partnership plans to redevelop the 1,400-acre site spanning across Weymouth, Rockland and Abington.
Weymouth, Southfield Redevelopment Authority—which is the governing municipality for the Base—and the master developer have received more than $35 million in state and local infrastructure funding. The financing will be used for water, wastewater and road improvements. The three municipalities are working towards connecting Weymouth to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority water supply through a 6.7-mile pipeline, which is scheduled for completion by 2031. Infrastructure work is slated to begin this fall.
Additionally, the redevelopment will preserve more than 880 acres of open and restricted space which account for two-thirds of the Base, as well as create habitats for the area’s wildlife.
The South Weymouth Naval Air Station was commissioned during World War II to support Navy blimp operations utilized in coastal anti-submarine patrols. The site closed in 1997 after serving as a Naval Air Reserve facility and Navy and Marine Corps training center.
The site for the future master-planned community is less than 19 miles south of downtown Boston, close to Interstate 93 and Massachusetts State Route 3. As for retail options, the development is within a 2-mile radius of two Whole Foods Market, a Home Depot store and several eateries.
Zooming in on Boston’s multifamily pipeline
As of May, multifamily completions in metro Boston accounted for 2.4 percent of total stock on a trailing 12-month basis, according to a recent Yardi Matrix report. The figure stood in line with New York City’s, but was slightly higher than the values registered by other major coastal markets, namely Los Angeles (1.9 percent of completions from total stock), San Francisco (1.5 percent), Washington, D.C. (1.8 percent) and Baltimore (1.2 percent).
Recent noteworthy multifamily development projects in metro Boston include Tremont Asset Management’s 145-unit community in Norwood, Mass., for which the company received a $44.5 million construction loan. The project broke ground last month.
