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Workforce Housing
MassHousing Closes on $8 Million in Financing for New, 29-Apartment Workforce Housing Community on a Vacant Parcel in Dorchester
Community-based TLee Development will build the new housing, including 25 workforce housing units, and ground-floor commercial space, at 1463 Dorchester Ave.
January 04, 2022

BOSTON - January 4, 2022 – MassHousing has provided a total of $8 million in affordable and workforce housing financing to TLee Development LLC, for the construction of 29 new apartments on a vacant parcel at 1463 Dorchester Ave. in Dorchester. The new housing community will feature 25 workforce housing units, four affordable units, and first-floor commercial space.

"Travis Lee has a proven record of constructing state of the art rental housing for the benefit of Dorchester families, and MassHousing is extremely pleased to be a partner in this latest development, which will provide working households with quality affordable housing and economic opportunity," said MassHousing Executive Director Chrystal Kornegay.

"Our team is very excited to partner again with MassHousing on this community-centric, mixed-used development. The Fields Corner neighborhood is a special place, and we are honored to play a small role in keeping it accessible to households with a wide range of incomes," said TLee Development Principal Travis Lee.

1463 Dorchester Ave. will include 21 studio apartments and eight one-bedroom apartments. Three of the apartments will be handicap accessible and the building will also have community space, a secure bicycle storage area, an outdoor patio, and 1,325 square feet of commercial space. The new building will be built adjacent to Fields Corner MBTA subway station.

All 29 new apartments at 1463 Dorchester Ave. will be deed-restricted and affordable to moderate- and middle-income households. Twenty-three of the units will be affordable for households earning at or below 90 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) and two units will be restricted to households earning at or below 80 percent of AMI. Four units will be affordable to households earning at or below 70 percent of AMI. The AMI for Boston is $120,800 for a household of four.

MassHousing is providing TLee Development with a $5.5 million permanent loan and $2.5 million in financing from the Agency's Workforce Housing Initiative. Other financing sources include $1.3 million from the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation's (MHIC) Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund.

1463 Dorchester Ave. advances the Baker-Polito Administration’s goal of creating up to 1,000 new workforce housing units affordable to middle-income households through MassHousing’s Workforce Housing Initiative. Since the inception of the initiative in 2016, MassHousing has committed or closed workforce housing financing totaling $133 million, to 65 projects, located in 25 cities and towns, and advanced the development of 5,226 housing units across a range of incomes, including 1,443 middle-income workforce units.

The general contractor will be MCR Construction, Inc., the architect is J. Garland Enterprises, and the management agent will be Bridgestone Properties.

MassHousing has financed 30 rental housing communities in Dorchester involving 2,933 housing units and $427.4 million in total financing. The Agency has additionally provided $1.2 billion in financing to 8,682 Boston homebuyers or homeowners who have refinanced their homes.

About TLee Development LLC

TLee Development is a Dorchester-based real estate development firm that focuses on small business and moderate-income housing development in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. For more information please visit www.tleedevelopment.com.

About MassHousing

MassHousing (The Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency) is an independent, quasi-public agency created in 1966 and charged with providing financing for affordable housing in Massachusetts. The Agency raises capital by selling bonds and lends the proceeds to low- and moderate-income homebuyers and homeowners, and to developers who build or preserve affordable and/or mixed-income rental housing. MassHousing does not use taxpayer dollars to sustain its operations, although it administers some publicly funded programs on behalf of the Commonwealth. Since its inception, MassHousing has provided more than $27.5 billion for affordable housing. For more information, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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Media Contacts

Paul McMorrow
Tom Farmer

MassHousing
One Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
www.masshousing.com