The Archdiocese of Boston is backing a proposal that would scrap a long-running auto repair and tire shop on Blue Hill Avenue and replace it with a six-story building holding 105 income-restricted rental apartments. The plan, focused on 1590 Blue Hill Ave in Mattapan Square, would also bring new retail and community space plus surface parking to the commercial strip. Developers submitted a letter of intent to city planners this spring, putting the project into the city's early review pipeline.
According to the Boston Planning & Development Agency, the filing calls for a six-story structure with 105 income-restricted rental residential apartments, ground-floor retail and community space, and 31 surface parking spaces. The BPDA listing puts the gross floor area at about 120,186 square feet on a roughly 42,240-square-foot parcel and notes that the proposal is in an early review phase.
What Sits On The Site Now
The 1.63-acre parcel is currently home to a long-established auto service and tire business, plus surrounding paved lots, according to property marketing materials. A Colliers/Boston Multifamily listing for the site describes an existing single-story concrete building and highlights the parcel's development potential under PLAN: Mattapan zoning changes, per Boston Multifamily.
Who Is Pushing The Project
Developer materials and local filings link the proposal to the Planning Office for Urban Affairs, the Archdiocese's nonprofit housing arm, and to local firm J. Garland Enterprises. The Planning Office for Urban Affairs describes its mission as converting church-owned parcels into affordable homes, while J. Garland Enterprises shows earlier renderings and larger concepts for the 1590 Blue Hill Ave site.
Neighbors And Scale On Blue Hill Ave
Two doors down at 1576 Blue Hill Ave, a separate proposal would bring another six-story mixed-use building to the block. That filing outlines 58 residential units, ground-floor retail, indoor bicycle parking and only minimal on-site vehicle spaces. The project appears on a Boston Planning & Development Agency listing, underscoring how multiple mid-rise housing proposals are clustering along this stretch of Blue Hill Avenue.
How It Fits City Planning Playbooks
The submissions line up with the city's Blue Hill Avenue Action Plan and PLAN: Mattapan, which prioritize transit-oriented, mixed-use development and the disposition of city parcels to expand neighborhood retail and income-restricted housing. City materials emphasize bringing more shops back to the avenue and using new housing to help support small businesses and transit improvements, according to the City of Boston.
The 1590 Blue Hill Ave project is now in the letter-of-intent stage and will move through BPDA review, public meetings and any required Article 80 steps before anything can be demolished or built. Developers' project pages offer contact and sign-up options for neighborhood updates as funding, design and community engagement continue to take shape.
