A 114-unit mixed-income apartment building near the Swampscott MBTA commuter rail stop has officially closed the books on its financing, with MassHousing confirming the final $14 million piece of a $69.1 million capital stack that took years of zoning battles and complex funding to assemble. The Westcott, developed by WinnCompanies on a former industrial site at 125 Essex Street, opened to residents in July 2025, but the paperwork behind its construction wasn't finalized until now.
According to Connect CRE, MassHousing provided $14 million in permanent financing to complete the deal, bringing the state agency's total contribution to the project to $28.4 million once its earlier $12.2 million in tax credit bridge financing and $2.2 million in workforce housing financing are counted. Bank of America supplied $38.7 million in construction financing, while federal and state Low-Income Housing Tax Credits generated another $37.5 million, per the same outlet's reporting. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities chipped in $5.4 million in direct financing and $7 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, with smaller contributions arriving from the Swampscott Affordable Housing Trust ($49,000), local HOME financing ($246,000), and an Affordable Housing Trust Fund allocation of $3 million in ARPA money.
Fourteen Funding Sources, One Long Fight
That sprawling list of financing partners — 14 separate components in all — reflects just how layered suburban affordable housing deals have become in Greater Boston, according to Tax Credit Advisor. The publication notes that closing the $14 million permanent financing marks the final milestone for a project that took years of public debate, zoning negotiation, and capital structuring to reach completion.
The Westcott wasn't always this size. The project was originally pitched as a 128-unit proposal under the name Elm Place before it was scaled down to 114 apartments — 3 studios, 71 one-bedrooms, 28 two-bedrooms, and 12 three-bedrooms — following 18 months of public debate and Zoning Board hearings over density concerns, the article notes. The Swampscott Zoning Board of Appeals ultimately approved the development in June 2022 under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 40B, the state statute that lets developers bypass restrictive local zoning in towns where less than 10% of housing stock is designated affordable.
Why Swampscott Qualified for Chapter 40B
Swampscott has fallen below that 10% threshold. That gap is what allowed WinnDevelopment to pursue the comprehensive permitting process despite local opposition over building height and neighborhood density.
The affordability pressure behind that math is stark. A local housing production study found that 55% of Swampscott renters are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing, compared to 37% of homeowners in town, according to a report from the Town of Swampscott.
Who Gets to Live There
The Westcott's 114 units are split across four income tiers, per Patch: 16 units for extremely low-income households earning up to 30% of Area Median Income, 62 units for low-income households up to 60% AMI, 16 workforce units for middle-income households up to 110% AMI, and 20 market-rate apartments. MassHousing's $2.2 million workforce housing contribution comes specifically from its statewide Workforce Housing Initiative, which supports middle-income renters earning between 80% and 120% AMI — those who earn too much for traditional subsidies but still can't afford market rents.
The building sits less than a quarter-mile from the Swampscott MBTA Commuter Rail station on the Newburyport/Rockport Line, and the project is identified as a transit-oriented community with transit amenities, Boston Real Estate Times reports. The MBTA also provided an easement for additional resident parking to support the project.
Turning a Blighted Lot Into a Neighborhood Fix
Beyond the housing itself, WinnDevelopment repaved surrounding streets including Pitman and Elm streets and installed new sidewalks around what had been a 1.3-acre blighted industrial warehouse parcel, according to Swampscott Tides. The site previously held unused commercial spaces and vacant industrial structures before construction began.
The Westcott is not MassHousing's first project in Swampscott. The agency previously backed the Senior Residences at Machon, a 38-unit affordable senior housing development created through the adaptive reuse of a former public elementary school, according to the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation. Together, the two projects reflect housing development in a land-constrained coastal suburb, using tools such as Chapter 40B and MassHousing's Workforce Housing Initiative.
