Three years after being approved, an affordable housing project behind Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral is sitting in limbo. Like with many developments across the city, soaring construction costs have put it on hold.
165 Park Drive was first pitched in 2022 as a two seven-story building construction project in Cathedral’s rear parking lot, bordered by Park Drive and Kilmarnock Street. It planned for 115 residential units, including 48 affordable homeownership units and 67 market rate apartments.
It also included preservation and landscaping elements to benefit the Cathedral.
According to the Project Notification Form (PNF) filed at the time, the plan was the “culmination of a multiyear effort to provide affordable housing” in the neighborhood initiated by the Cathedral itself.
This project would also be “subsidized by a major contribution” from Samuels & Associates, a prominent Fenway real estate developer, in connection to a much larger mixed-use office development at 1400 Boylston Street. Samuels planned to redevelop the lot that currently contains the Star Market grocery store, an acre of surface-level parking lots, and a “decommissioned gas station” that hosts the weekly Fenway Flea market in the summertime.
The Samuels development is not residential, so it’s not subject to Boston’s inclusionary zoning laws, which require certain large market-rate housing developments to contribute to affordable housing projects. But Samuels nevertheless made a significant monetary commitment to 165 Park Drive “to advance housing affordability goals.”
“This significant number of affordable homeownership units would not be possible without…the financial support by Samuels & Associates, in connection with its development of 1400 Boylston Street project, which support is critical to fill a very significant gap between the cost of developing the affordable units, and the restricted affordable sale prices,” the 165 Park Drive PNF said.
“This financial support will allow advancement of the Project and will create far more affordable units than would otherwise be feasible. The Fenway neighborhood has the lowest rate of homeownership of any neighborhood in the city.”
But construction costs in Boston have broadly increased. Office, laboratory, and research developments have continuously stalled across the city. Samuels’ office- and research-oriented Boylston project has been on hold since receiving Planning Board approval in 2024. And consequently, so is 165 Park Drive.
“It is my understanding that the Holy Trinity project is the housing linkage associated with another development project by Samuels, that was approved but is on hold due to other factors, like many other projects in the city,” Freddie Veikley of the Fenway Civic Association wrote in an email. “The Holy Trinity project is not a standalone project. So therefore, will not proceed until the enabling project is constructed. To my knowledge, most everything in the Fenway is on hold.”
On the Boston Planning Department website, there are 17 projects currently listed in the Fenway as “Board Approved” but not yet having begun construction, with approval dates ranging as recently as 2025 and as far back as 2017. Additionally, four projects are currently under construction, three of which have board approval dates from over five years ago.
Because no construction has started, no money has been moved yet. One person at Samuels with knowledge of 165 Park Drive told The Boston Guardian that the financial market in the city was broadly causing a lot of projects to get stuck. They said that the firm had made financial commitments to the project which would only be fulfilled when it started moving forward again.
