Scott Oran, one of the developers of 28 Austin Street submitted this update in response to Bryan Barash’s Village 14 thread from earlier this week.

Thanks Bryan for starting this timely conversation.

I am writing as one of the developers of 28 Austin Street to share some facts.

We are so proud of how 28 Austin Street has rapidly become a new and welcoming addition to Newtonville exceeding even the expectations of its many supporters.

And yet we anticipate still more positive additions over the coming months:

  • Later this month, installation of our rooftop solar array will be completed and provide over 50% of the building’s electric needs, making 28 Austin the greenest apartments in Newton  
  • In March, two retail tenants, Caffe Nero, the international café and bakery, and Henry Bear’s Park, a local toy store, will open, bringing new street life and jobs to a formerly crumbling stretch of Austin Street
  • In April, the new Austin Street plaza will be completed, as designed, with new plantings, tables and moveable seating to delight visitors
  • In May and June, working with the Newtonville Area Council and Newton Community Pride, our $10,000 gift will fund a Saturday music series and a new wall mural (details to follow!)
  • Finally, in July, the City will start on their long awaited Walnut Street, Austin Street and Bram Way improvements which promise to make Newtonville more friendly to pedestrians and shoppers.

Only then will the transformation be complete. 

This then should be viewed as just an interim report.

Since welcoming our first resident on October 1, four and a half months ago, we have leased 80% of the building’s 68 apartments creating an exciting and diverse community. 

As we had hoped and predicted, our residents are both young and old, just starting out and retired.  Some are single, some married and some divorced. Some have children.  

But defying dire predictions, just three children to date have been enrolled in the Newton Public Schools. This is less than one-sixth the predicted number.  

And as noted, one third of our apartments are income restricted.  Over 125 individuals and families entered last summer’s state-mandated lottery for just 23 apartments.  These income-restricted apartments are homes to, among others, municipal workers, employees of local non-profit organizations and many long term residents of Newton just needing a new place to live. 

Much of the building was built last winter in a climate controlled factory and trucked to the site. This allowed us to minimize interruptions in Newtonville, ensure quality, reduce construction waste and create very quiet homes and a very high performance building envelope to reduce energy use.  The building envelope is so air tight that every apartment has state of the art energy recovery ventilation to ensure healthy and fresh climate controlled air.  Once on site, the building was clad with brick and cementitious siding.

124 new municipal parking spaces — including five accessible spaces — have replaced the crumbling old municipal lot.  New signage on Austin Street and Bram Way welcomes municipal parkers.

The new playground is attracting young neighborhood kids, moms and dads.

While anecdotal, we have heard from local area businesses that business is up and they are pleased with the new customers from 28 Austin Street.

And we hear from residents that they are thrilled to live in the only place in Newton where you can walk to a supermarket (or three), a drug store, restaurants and public transportation to Boston.

This may account for the lack of car ownership.  Again defying dire predictions, our 90-car underground resident parking garage is less than half full. Many of our younger and older residents don’t have cars.  Instead, they use public transportation and ride sharing.

Given the availability of our underground parking, we expect to rent those empty parking spaces to area businesses and their employees, further freeing up street and municipal parking for Newtonville shoppers. This in turn, in a virtuous circle, should promote and support area retail business.

In sum, 28 Austin Street is exceeding expectations in every way after just four months.  We look forward to sharing more good news over the coming months and years.