A London-based investment giant with more than $1 trillion in assets under management is putting its money into a quiet office park near the West Concord commuter rail stop, financing the construction of 201 new homes on land that once housed the corporate headquarters of Welch's grape juice. The project, a partnership between L&G Asset Management and Taurus Investment Holdings, marks the first time L&G has funded ground-up construction anywhere in the United States.
L&G announced the acquisition and development plans Wednesday, according to Bisnow. The two-building project is planned for part of the office park at 292-294 Baker Ave., about half a mile from the West Concord MBTA commuter rail station and west of Concord center and the Old North Bridge site, where the first military conflict of the American Revolution took place. Taurus, which has advanced the project through planning over the last three years, acquired the broader 410,296-square-foot office complex at 300 Baker Avenue for $74.5 million back in April 2020, according to Bisnow's earlier reporting, with plans to run it as a flagship for its RENU Communities energy-retrofit subsidiary.
Welch's, once a major tenant at the office park, relocated its headquarters to Waltham in 2025, per Bisnow's reporting. Developers plan to demolish some of the now-vacant office buildings and add parking before constructing new five- and six-story residential buildings, officially named NOVO Riverside Commons. The Concord Zoning Board of Appeals approved the project's Chapter 40B Comprehensive Permit in April 2024, according to the Town of Concord, after the developer filed its application in August 2023 and cleared multiple public hearings. The board later endorsed a plan in November 2025 to formally subdivide roughly 10.22 acres from the larger office property specifically for the housing development.
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L&G, which expanded into the United States in 2022, had previously funded only acquisitions of existing multifamily properties in Denver and Chicago. This marks its first financing of a project built from the ground up in the country. Alexia Gottschalch, L&G's head of U.S. real estate equity, said the Concord development is an important milestone for the firm's U.S. real estate platform, per Bisnow. The project is being funded through L&G's institutional retirement division.
The site's appeal is tied to Concord's housing math. Recalculations using 2020 U.S. Census data caused Concord's Subsidized Housing Inventory percentage to drop to 9.97% in May 2023 — 715 subsidized units out of 7,172 year-round homes — pushing the town below the state's 10% statutory threshold, according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. That drop opened Concord, like ten other Massachusetts municipalities at the time, to Chapter 40B developer zoning overrides that let projects like this one bypass local zoning limits in exchange for including affordable units.
Only a Quarter of Units Will Be Affordable
Of the 201 planned units, 25% will be set aside as affordable housing under Chapter 40B, translating to 51 units restricted at 80% of area median income. But under the state's counting rules, all 201 units count toward Concord's inventory total because at least a quarter are deed-restricted, a mechanism the Concord Housing Foundation notes is designed to incentivize mixed-income rental construction by giving towns full credit for the whole building. The town briefly lost credit for those units altogether in April 2025 when a building permit wasn't pulled within a year of ZBA approval, a standard Chapter 40B procedural requirement, before the units were restored to the state list once permitting resumed.
Financing had wavered before L&G stepped in. The Concord Bridge reported in March that Taurus had planned to break ground by June 2026, a target that slipped as funding was finalized; L&G's involvement has now solidified a fall 2026 groundbreaking timeline. Concord isn't tackling this alone — the 237-unit Residences at Thoreau, advanced by Pinebrook Group, is also moving through the pipeline. At an August roundtable, town housing officials said Concord's Subsidized Housing Inventory stood just above 10% as building permit applications were submitted for both projects, according to CitizenPortal. If both developments are completed, the Concord Housing Foundation projects the town's inventory count would climb to 1,516 units, or 16.1% of its total housing stock — though market-rate units would still make up the bulk of that new total.
A Town Squeezed by Rising Prices
The pressure behind these projects traces back to Concord's cost of living. Median single-family home prices in town more than doubled between 2010 and 2023, from $680,000 to $1.525 million, far outpacing the growth in median household income over the same period, according to the Town of Concord's 2025 Housing Production Plan. Bisnow reports Concord's current median household income at $195,000, in a town of roughly 18,200 residents that passed its housing production plan in 2022.
Concord's predicament is part of a broader statewide pattern. Ninety-four Massachusetts municipalities exceeded the 10% Chapter 40B statutory minimum as of late 2025, up from 72 in the state's 2023 update, according to the Massachusetts Municipal Association. Town officials have estimated Concord would need roughly 4,000 additional market-rate homes before it could fall back below the 10% threshold on its own. For now, the fate of the old Welch's campus rests on whether L&G and Taurus can keep the fall 2026 groundbreaking on track after last year's permitting delays.
