By that time the Trilogy project, a mixed-use development located between Brookline Avenue, Boylston Street and Kilmarnock Street in the Back Bay Fens, already leasing units, will be completely up and running.
The complex, designed by Elkus/Manfredi Architects, covers 2.2 acres and cost $198 million to create.
It will offer 576 units of rental housing, nearly 42,000 square feet of retail space on the ground level and an underground parking garage.
Its apartment-style residences vary in size from studios to three-bedroom units. The state-of-the-art units include modern kitchens, central air conditioning and walk-in closets.
Residents of the Trilogy complex will also enjoy a common workout area, courtyard, HDTV media center and library.
If this all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. While the actual figures are not disclosed to the public, the managing director of Denterlein Worldwide, Diana Pisciotta, said the prices of the apartments are not exactly geared toward students.
“While we certainly are not going to discriminate, it does not strike me as appropriate for students,” Pisciotta said.
Considering most college students are not able to fork over the big bucks required to live in the luxurious Trilogy Complex, BU students will more likely be affected by how it will alter the Fenway neighborhood.
Kelly Brilliant, the executive director of the Fenway Alliance – an association of local organizations that collaborates to ensure the Fenway neighborhood’s cultural, economic and environmental vitality – said she thinks the Trilogy complex should have a positive influence on the neighborhood.
“We think it’s a good thing for the area,” she said, “that area definitely needs something that will be thriving, something to give it some life.”
Brilliant said the area has, in recent memory, always been something of a problem.
“It’s a blighted area,” she said, “and one that is kind of scary at night – which it shouldn’t be. We have a historic ballpark [in the neighborhood], it should be better.”
Lisa Soli, treasurer of the Fenway Community Development Corporation, agreed that the area has been somewhat lifeless, attributing its problems to the industrial zoning applied to the land before redevelopment.
“Anytime you bring in more housing it will turn the neighborhood into more of a 24-hour neighborhood,” Soli said. “Where before there were parking lots that – at night when all the area workers had gone home – would feel empty, now the people who live in the apartments will be coming and going at all times.”
Soli said the expected rent prices might be one of the only negatives associated with the projects, as the high rates might skew the neighborhood toward a higher-income demographic – disturbing the traditional make-up.
The price of rent will be determined closer to the project’s completion, but buying property could cost you over $1 million.
“The Trilogy is planning to charge $4,500 a month for some units,” Soli said, “meaning you would have to have an income of around $160,000 a year to afford it.”
The biggest concern, however, could be heightened traffic in what is already a densely traveled section of the city. Pisciaotta said the builders considered how to accommodate the congestion.
“The area does have a lot of people converging because of the medical facilities and colleges that are near there,” Pisciaotta said. “However, the parking is well designed to minimize the impact on traffic.”
Soli said she didn’t think that increased traffic would be a problem, because of both the on-site parking that will be offered for residents, and many people will find they won’t need a car.
“The Fenway neighborhood actually has the lowest car-ownership rate in the city,” Soli said. “It’s a very convenient neighborhood to live in.
“The Fenway CDC doesn’t see [parking or traffic] as a problem,” she continued, “because most of the residents will live in the city, work in the city and do their shopping in the city.”
Pisciaotta added the complex will not increase traffic because she expects a large majority of the residents will not require cars to get to work.
“Because there are hospitals and universities and other places of employment, a lot of the people living in the building will be within walking distance from their jobs,” Pisciaotta said.
Supporting the idea that many residents will be able to get to their jobs on foot, Harvard University bought 170 units of housing for their professors and other faculty.
Boston Redevelopment Authority spokesperson Jessica Shumaker said the Trilogy project is also designed to make Kenmore Square a larger market for retail and potentially attract more tourists to the area.
“With space being rented at the ground level for restaurants and stores, it creates a place that people will want to come and visit,” she said.
Brilliant said she thought the renovation and redevelopment in the Kenmore Square area has had a positive effect on the neighborhood, and hoped Trilogy would have a similar affect up the street.
“I think it can [have a positive effect] because if the condos do well you are going to find a synergy with the residents and they are going to want certain services,” she said.
Brilliant said she hoped the retail space being made available in the complexes would be occupied by cafés, restaurants and maybe mid-level retail, something that would promote life in the area.
Soli agreed, saying she thought most of the retail space would be taken up by community-focused retail and would not be the type of stores that would attract shoppers from other neighborhoods.
“It’s not like they are going to build a Wal-Mart in the basement,” she said.
If you thought Trilogy seemed like enough to turn this section of Boston into a glamour spot, there is also another development on the way.
Samuels and Associates, the same firm that developed the Trilogy project, will break ground on the Back Bay Fens project in March of this year.
The Back Bay Fens, located at 1330 Boylston St., will open to the public in 2007. Like Trilogy, units will be beyond the financial means of most college students.
Accommodations at the Fens include upscale full kitchens, a fitness area, views of the Charles River and Back Bay skyline and a modern entertainment center.
The Back Bay Fens will include 210 housing units, an abundant amount of office space and retail room on the ground floor, just like Trilogy.
The complex will also have a three-level underground parking garage with 291 spaces for vehicles. Therefore, the amount of on-street parking should not be affected, and traffic should remain relatively constant.
Soli said she thought the developments would be good for the neighborhood, noting the more people move into the area the more incentive there will be for basic service providers – banks, hardware stores and other small businesses that focus on serving residential communities – to move into Fenway, which she said is basically underserved.
“The buildings are a little big, a little tall,” she said, “but if they are going to bring in enough people to build the neighborhood the projects are going to have to go on.”
When the dust settles from these developments college students, who have long dominated Fenway and surrounding neighborhoods, may find themselves outnumbered. And for the year-round residents of the area, that may not be a bad thing.