Adaptive Reuse Brings Online 86 ‘All-Electric’ Rentals Near Boston
The mixed-income community gives new life to a 179-year-old mill.
WinnCompanies has opened Stone Mill Lofts, an all-electric apartment community in Lawrence, Mass., north of Boston. The 86-unit, $39.2 million project Stone Mill Lofts is a mixed-income, fossil-fuel-free community, developed through adaptive reuse within a 179-year-old mill.
Together with federal, state and local officials, WinnDevelopment completed the initiative of transforming the oldest mill in the city within two years.
The 2.3-acre Stone Mill site is located at 72 General St. The four-story property consists of 50 one-bedroom apartments, 28 two-bedroom/two-bath units and 8 three-bedroom/two bath units. The list of on-site amenities includes a resident lounge and kitchen, fitness center with yoga nook, children’s playroom, indoor bicycle parking, resident storage lockers, work-from-home pods, outdoor area and patio and a historic mill exhibit room.
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WinnCompanies, together with The Architectural Team of Chelsea, a historical and a sustainability consultant, designed a plan to preserve the historical characteristics and features of the mill, while also supporting the new features of an all-electric community.
Not your first mill conversion rodeo
The 149,200-square-foot mill was built between 1845 and 1848 by Abbott Lawrence, whose name later became the city’s, too. Purchased by WinnCompanies in August 2021, Stone Mill Lofts is the developer’s third project to revive an old and unused mill in Lawrence. Nationwide, the company completed another 45 historic building transformations, across seven other states, since 1981.
Lawrence is certainly not new to the mill conversion game, even when looking past WinnCompanies’ efforts. There are several other examples of such historic structures becoming affordable units, the list including the Duck Mill, the Marriner Mill and the Van Brodie Mill, among others.
Meanwhile, WinnCompanies has been keeping busy with affordable and partially affordable projects elsewhere as well, including in New Britain, Conn., and Princeton, N.J.
Stone Mill Lofts: Mixed-income, multiple funding streams, big development team
Seventeen of Stone Mill Lofts’ apartments are market-rate, with all the others being designated as affordable. A total of 58 units are reserved for those earning up to 60 percent of area median income, while the remaining 11 apartments serve those earning up to 30 percent of AMI.
Financing for Stone Mill Lofts came from multiple sources, including MassHousing, which provided $25.8 million in financing, most of it in the form of a bridge loan; Bank of America, which provided $28.3 million in loan and tax credit equity; and BlueHub Capital added $15.3 million in state tax credits.
Other parties that financed the project included the city of Lawrence, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. The project also benefitted from federal and state LIHTC equity, as well as Federal and State Historic Tax Credit equity.
The team working on the project also included: Keith Construction Inc. as general contractor, alongside R.W. Sullivan Engineering, VHB, Odeh Engineers, McPhail Associates LLC, Loureiro Engineering Associates Inc. and Axiom Partners Inc., as part of the development team, plus Robinson + Cole LLP providing legal counsel.
