Gov. Maura Healey's administration this week announced $15.3M in awards for five residential conversion projects totaling 856 apartments in Boston, Dedham, Springfield, Westford and Worcester. The announcement matters because it confirms that state-level financial support is now a recurring tool for unlocking conversions at a time when developers are struggling to piece together financing. The awards were made through the state's Commercial Conversion Tax Credit Initiative, a program created under the $5B Affordable Homes Act that Healey signed in late 2024 to address the state's housing shortage and affordability crisis.
The largest award in this latest round was $4M for Synergy's 255-unit conversion at 294 Washington St. in downtown Boston. Three projects are receiving $3M each: Redgate's 300-unit conversion of a former hotel at 219 Littleton Road in Westford, McCaffery Interests' conversion of four historic buildings in downtown Springfield to 99 apartments, and Nordblom Co.'s project to demolish two commercial buildings near Legacy Place in Dedham to build 154 apartments. The final project received $2.3M: The Menkiti Group's conversion of a historic building in downtown Worcester to 48 apartments. The funding is helping to transform a hotel, historic office buildings and other commercial properties into residential use.
The evidence comes from a single Bisnow report, which quotes Healey saying the awards "will put underused properties back to work, create 856 new apartments and help bring more residents, customers and energy to downtowns and commercial districts across the state." The same source notes that her administration has made one previous award round of $8.4M for five projects totaling 339 units in Boston, Fitchburg, New Bedford, Pittsfield and Worcester. That prior round provides a useful baseline: the new round is roughly 82% larger in dollar terms and supports more than 2.5 times as many units, suggesting the program is scaling up as it matures.
For the commercial real estate sector, the awards reinforce that government funding has proven necessary to move conversion projects forward. The Bisnow report states that while the region has an abundance of vacant commercial space and an urgent need for more housing, developers continue to struggle to piece together financing. The two projects in Boston proper that have received funds from the state program are a small fraction of the 29 conversions developers have proposed in the city since it launched a tax incentive program in late 2023. Just eight of those projects have started construction, while projects totaling more than 1,100 units have received city approval but haven't started work. That gap between approvals and construction starts underscores why state capital is being deployed as a bridge.
The dossier leaves several questions open. It does not specify the total project costs, the share of each budget covered by the tax credits, or the affordability mix of the 856 units. It also does not detail the timing of construction starts or completion dates for the five awarded projects. What to watch next is whether these awards translate into actual groundbreaking, and whether future rounds continue to grow in size given the pipeline of approved but unstarted conversions in Boston alone.