Cabot, Cabot & Forbes Looks to Build Unique Student Housing Project

An aerial map of the former St. Gabriel’s Monastery project site in Brighton.

BOSTON—Longtime real estate development firm Cabot, Cabot & Forbes is planning to move forward with a major housing development geared for graduate students as well as health care professionals and researchers on Washington Street in the city’s Brighton neighborhood. The Boston-based real estate firm filed a letter of intent with the Boston Redevelopment Authority last week. The letter of intent is the first stage in the approval process in the City of Boston. Jay Doherty , CEO of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, tells Globest.com that the firm hopes to fill an Expanded Project Notification Form within the next 90 days with the BRA depending on input from several neighborhood groups in Brighton as well as city agencies. The firm is looking to build approximately 680 residential units that will be marketed to graduate students “and others engaged in teaching, training and research in a wide variety of professions,” Doherty wrote the BRA. He tells Globest.com that other prospective tenants could include nurses, researchers, interns, and adjunct professors at nearby universities. Cabot, Cabot & Foster and partner Blue Vista Capital Management paid approximately $20 million in late December 2015 for the 11.8-acre parcel at 159-201 Washington St., the site for the former St. Gabriel’s Monastery that was built in the early 1900s. The project team also includes Blue Vista Capital affiliate Peak Campus Development, LLC , the nation’s second largest privately-owned student housing company. The project will be constructed by local construction firm John Moriarty Associates. “It is not a dorm. It is closer to a conventional multifamily apartment set of buildings,” he says. “However, there are many features in design and operations that are different from conventional multifamily buildings.” For example, the units will be smaller, and the studios will be significantly smaller than conventional rental apartment units. All units, however, will have at least one bathroom. The units will range from approximately 500 square feet to 1,200 square feet in size. The plan calls for the redevelopment of the 35,000-square-foot St. Gabriel’s Monastery and the construction of four new residential buildings ranging in height from four to seven stories at the rear of the property adjacent to Brighton High School and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. Doherty says the development will total approximately 610,000 square feet of gross floor area and is projected to cost approximately $200 million to complete. Doherty says that the redeveloped St. Gabriel’s Monastery could feature some housing units on the upper floors. The ground floor will be primarily dedicated to amenities and features such as work-study space, the leasing office, a café and possibly a music room. The project will be supported by about 400 off-street parking spaces. Some of the key features at the property will include fitness facilities, dedicated study areas, meeting rooms, and recreational facilities as well as Wi‐Fi, bus shuttles to Boston College, Boston University, Harvard Square and the Longwood Medical Area. The new buildings are designed as wood-framed construction over one or two levels of concrete. “This is not construction that is commonly found in the City of Boston, it is commonly found in the suburbs,” Doherty says. The company is currently holding discussions with the Boston unionized building trades to secure agreements concerning residential work rates and work practices to lower costs that would help facilitate this type of middle market housing development, he adds. The rental charges are expected to be much less than conventional multifamily properties in the city of Boston. Studio rents are expected to run approximately $1,600 a month, while the two-bedroom unit will run about $2,500 a month. Once the firm has filed its Expanded Project Notification Form, the developer expects that the project will require rezoning approval as well as variances for the project’s building heights and certain setbacks.