After over two decades of planning, development, and construction, the Residences at Harvard Commons, a mixed-income housing development comprising 45 affordable apartments and 54 market-rate single-family homes, is nearing completion.
Located on the Dorchester/Mattapan border of Boston at the site of the former Boston State Hospital, a Department of Mental Health (DMH) facility that was shuttered in 1979, the property had long been a blight in a neighborhood that had struggled to regain its former vibrancy. State and community officials are lauding Harvard Commons as a model of generational wealth-building through home ownership.
The project was envisioned and developed by Cruz Companies, a third-generation, 100 percent Black-owned construction and development firm that sought to revitalize the formerly diverse and thriving neighborhood by providing affordable apartment units and preserving wealth through home ownership.
Cruz Companies President and CEO John Cruz III, the grandchild of first-generation immigrants from the Cape Verde Islands off the Northwest coast of Africa, grew up not far from the site in the ’50s and ’60s in a neighborhood with a significant Jewish population.
A generation of steep decline
“I grew up in Grove Hall [1.5 miles/2.4 km from the Boston State Hospital], and we were the fourth or fifth Black family to move into the neighborhood,” said Cruz. “I went to junior high and high school with [many Jewish students from the neighborhood], and there was a strong Jewish presence right up until the whole fiasco that was the redlining and mortgage scheme.”
That “scheme” was detailed by Boston historian Jim Vrabel in his book, A People’s History of the New Boston. In brief, Jewish residents in Mattapan and Dorchester had begun relocating to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s, but that relocation was accelerated by a program called B-BURG (Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group). Launched in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Vrabel describes the program as well-intentioned but deeply flawed. “It involved the city working with a group of Boston banks, who made millions of dollars in federally insured mortgage loans to minority home buyers—but only in the largely Jewish area of Mattapan and Dorchester,” he tells Urban Land. “The flood of so much mortgage lending into one area prompted unscrupulous realtors to engage in ‘blockbusting,’ literally frightening white homeowners into selling at low prices so they could sell the homes at higher prices to Black residents purchasing homes through the program.”
Vrabel adds that the federal government performed cursory “drive-by” home inspections before approving the sales, often overlooking significant structural problems. However, the same banks that made mortgage loans denied the new owners home repair loans because they were not federally insured. Forced to make the needed repairs, many homeowners fell behind on their mortgages. The banks then foreclosed and transferred the homes—many of them two- and three-family buildings—to the Federal Housing Authority (later HUD), which proved to be an inadequate landlord. More than 1,000 homes fell into gross disrepair and were abandoned. Suspicious fires were frequent. The once flourishing neighborhood decayed into the textbook definition of a slum.
The long road back
By the 1980s, however, the neighborhood began to rebound and stabilize with an influx of migrants, primarily from Haiti and other Caribbean nations. In the late 1990s, a “request for proposal” (RFP) went out for an 18-acre (7.3 ha) parcel on the site of the former Boston State Hospital. The Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) had already demolished the buildings and removed the asbestos and other hazardous materials.
The RFP was initially awarded to another developer, but the Boston State Hospital Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC) ultimately rejected the plan, which was to build for-sale modular housing using outside labor and resources. “The real goal of the project was to strengthen the neighborhood and give positive opportunities to the folks in the neighborhood,” explains DCAAM commissioner Adam Baacke. “That’s why the whole project was guided by the advisory committee in the first place.”
Cruz credits CAC for their oversight in assuring that all potential developers of the former hospital site be fully committed to the surrounding neighborhood. Ultimately, the RFP was awarded to Cruz’s firm, and its proposal for the property was accepted.
Aided by an infrastructure grant from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Cruz Development began the project by constructing the utilities, sidewalks, and streets. Other state and city agencies, as well as private lenders, provided funding to support the construction of 45 affordable apartments, including 10 set aside for DMH clients.
A new neighborhood is born
Completed in 2004, each building housed two to three units designed as townhouses to blend in with the future single-family homes. In 2007, Cruz began constructing the single-family homes, but it was an arduous process. One hurdle was getting the project financed because appraisers were having a difficult time establishing comps to support mortgages.
“There were no comps in Mattapan or Dorchester for what we were building,” Cruz says. “It was still a marginal neighborhood, and [property sellers] were only getting $250,000 for a triple-decker [three-family apartment building], and some were selling for under $100,000. The banks wouldn’t finance more than three houses at a time, so we had to sell those or at least have a purchase and sale before they would give us more money.”
The first home sold for approximately $429,000; by 2016, 24 houses had been constructed and sold. Phase II broke ground in 2016 with the help of a $1.9 million MassWorks grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development (EOHED) to extend the roads and utilities. Jay Ash, then-secretary of EOHED, told local newspaper Bay State Banner at the Phase II groundbreaking: “This is exactly what we should be replicating—not just in every neighborhood of Boston, but in every community in the Commonwealth.”
The three-, four-, and five-bedroom homes are traditional New England housing design, and Harvard Commons directly abuts the Mass Audubon Boston Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, which was also created on the former hospital property. It’s also within walking distance of the 485-acre (196 ha) Franklin Park—Boston’s largest open space. The final half-dozen homes within the development are now under construction, with at least three already under agreement. The last home sale in late July—a five-bedroom, 3.5 bath with 2,800 square feet (260 sq m) of living space on a 0.23-acre (0.09 ha) lot with a two-car garage—fetched $1,175,000; by comparison, a three-bedroom, 2.5 bath constructed in 2013 with 1,757 square feet (163 sq m) of living space and a one-car car garage sold for $800,000. In Boston, the median asking price in July was $950,000, with a median listing home price of $906 per square foot, according to Realtor.com.
Justin Cruz, the company’s COO and the son of John, purchased a home in Harvard Commons in 2013 and will soon be moving into a larger home within the development. CAC has also released funds for a four-unit building for DMH to be constructed on the parcel.
In addition to transforming the Dorchester neighborhood through the mix of affordable rentals and suburban-quality housing, Harvard Commons reflects the economic and cultural diversity of the neighborhood. After tiring of condo living, Mark Koeck and husband Julian, who emigrated from the Republic of Seychelles, purchased a home in Harvard Commons in 2019.
“We loved the diversity of the neighborhood, and we really liked John Cruz’s vision,” says Koeck. “He’s created a neighborhood where people are engaged with one another. We love being in our backyard, but we also love sitting on our front porch and saying hi to everyone in the neighborhood, and by that, I mean people from the apartments and the entire surrounding neighborhood.”
Creating a “model” of affordable housing
Harvard Commons has also won accolades from DCAAM and the neighborhood’s state representative. Expectations for the project were set before Baacke became commissioner, but he says “the agency feels [the project] has really exceeded expectations on a number of levels”—including higher than anticipated market demand and valuations for the homes.
“The Healy-Driscoll administration has put a real emphasis on the importance of leveraging state property for housing production,” says Baacke. “And while this project predates the current administration, in many ways, it’s a great model for the variety of housing production opportunities that can [be developed] on state property.”
Massachusetts State Representative Russell Holmes, whose district includes Mattapan and Dorchester, has closely monitored the progress of Harvard Commons since being elected in 2010. “I wanted to see a community, and it’s great to see this materialize,” he says. “I want the doctor to be able to live next to the person in affordable housing and to have their kids grow up together—not have these folks separated from one another.”
For the elder Cruz, the development of Harvard Commons was deeply personal.
“It really hurt me to see this neighborhood deteriorate so quickly [in the 1960s],” he says. “It was like a war zone, with all the vacant lots. Did this project make me a lot of money? No. But I believe in karma, and hopefully, we’ll be remembered as a catalyst for investment in this neighborhood.”
Further reading:
ULI Boston: Housing Public-Private Partnerships Lessons
Coastal Resilience and Real Estate
Greater Boston Massachusetts: Unified Rail for a Unified Region
