Boston is finally cracking open its long‑dormant Housing Accelerator Fund, and the first big bet is landing in Nubian Square. City officials and MassHousing are backing a new apartment building on an underused parking lot at 20 Malcolm X Boulevard, a project that has been inching toward the starting line for years.
The plan calls for roughly 110 apartments, with 22 reserved at rents affordable to low and middle income households. The development also keeps the historic former Roxbury Boys Club building on the site, a rare win for both housing and preservation. To get the deal across the finish line, the city is putting in about $8.4 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund, while the state is adding $2.1 million from its Momentum Fund to close a lingering financing gap and push the project into the construction phase.
As reported by The Boston Globe, the financing package teams up developers SV+Partners and Trax Development with partners including Caste Capital and Embarc Design, and marks the first time a private project has tapped Boston’s Accelerator Fund. The Globe notes the city originally carved out roughly $100 million for the fund in 2024 as part of a larger $110 million housing investment push, and that both the city and state dollars are structured as equity that will be repaid and cycled into future projects once permanent financing is in place. MassHousing is also lining up a mortgage loan through lender Berkadia to sit alongside those equity investments, according to the Globe’s reporting.
How the funds work
The Boston Planning & Development Agency describes the Accelerator Fund as an equity‑style tool that is meant to reduce the amount of private capital needed for shovel‑ready projects and then recycle repayments into new developments. In its explainer, BPDA says the city’s equity is paired with MassHousing’s $50 million Momentum Fund, a state revolving equity pool that is designed to unlock more than 1,000 new multifamily units across Massachusetts.
MassHousing has already committed Momentum Fund equity to projects in Milton and Grafton and emphasizes that the money is intended to revolve, so public dollars can move from one project to the next instead of vanishing into a single deal.
What it means for Nubian Square
Developers and planners say this co‑investment clears a major hurdle for Nubian Square, where a wave of proposals has sparked equal parts optimism about new activity and anxiety about displacement and persistently vacant storefronts. Jacob Vance, principal at SV+Partners, told The Boston Globe, "The takeout financing provided by the MassHousing Momentum Fund and Boston’s Housing Accelerator Fund is integral to the success of the project." In other words, without this public equity stepping in, the numbers were not penciling out.
The stakes go beyond a single building. Coverage of development tensions in the area, along with Boston’s own planning documents, show how this site fits into a broader push to revive the commercial core while trying to keep long‑time residents in place. Bisnow and BPDA materials on PLAN: Nubian Square lay out those goals, which range from adding housing and jobs to filling empty retail spaces.
City officials stress this is not meant to be a permanent subsidy. As outlined by the BPDA, the Accelerator and Momentum funds are expected to be repaid once projects lock in long‑term mortgages, freeing the money to move into other stalled sites. The program is targeting hundreds more rental homes across Boston, and observers will be watching closely to see whether this Nubian Square deal proves the model can work at scale.
For now, it is not quite time to break out the ceremonial shovels. The development team still has to finalize its takeout debt and secure permits before any construction timeline becomes official. But with the city’s $100 million housing vault finally opening, Nubian Square just moved a step closer to seeing that parking lot turn into apartments.
