Ed McNamara, who could not immediately be reached for comment, has said too much administrative work is prompting him to leave the post at the end of this month and start his own development business. The housing authority's deputy executive director Margaret Van Vliet will take over as interim director.
Currently the 70-acre housing development has 462 units originally built during World War II. The housing authority is waiting on a $35-million grant from the federal Department of Housing that will help finance the redevelopment, which will include 850 units, 372 of them to be made available at below market rates.
Prior to joining the housing authority, Ed McNamara was the director of development for Prendergast & Assoc. when it developed the Buckman Heights Apartments, completed in 1998. The 144-unit, transit-friendly, eco-sensitive affordable housing complex sits on the corner of Northeast 16th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard, former home of a Chevrolet dealership.
One of the goals of the project was to disprove the theory that green buildings didn't make good for a business's bottom line. The project took two years to build and the cost was $62 per sf. "We gambled a bit on a green building. But we did it. We built to density, and we were kind to the environment," said McNamara at the time. Moreover, the place was full six months after it opened.
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