Thoreau apartments inch toward construction start
Construction could start this summer on the five-story, two-building Residences at Thoreau complex.
The developers of a 237-unit Forest Ridge Road apartment project could start construction this summer, according to Town Manager Kerry Lafleur.
The Boston-based Pinebrook Group hasn’t publicly announced a project timeline, but has “indicated that they are looking to pull their building permit in June,” Lafleur told the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust this month.
Plans for the five-story, two-building Residences at Thoreau complex include 60 affordable rental apartments.
Pinebrook officials didn’t respond to Bridge questions about their timeline.
If construction begins in June, the new buildings could rise almost simultaneously with a 201-unit Baker Avenue development called Novo Riverside Commons. Both projects used the state’s Chapter 40B law, which aims to boost affordable housing by letting developers bypass zoning rules in towns without sufficient units.
Municipalities need 10% of their housing units to be “countable” on the state’s Subsidized Housing Inventory if they want to keep local control over development proposals.
Acton got lucky after it slipped below the mark in 2023, Lafleur told The Acton Bridge. “We really could have [had] nightmare projects, and they are both really good,” she said.
The town is back above the state’s 40B threshold thanks to a few smaller additions since Thoreau and Novo came forward. It’s a narrow margin; these promise a bigger buffer.
The Residences at Thoreau apartment complex will displace the historic Camp Thoreau, which developers bought in 2022 with the adjoining Thoreau Club.
Pinebrook executive Keith Callahan said the company was looking for a new campground as of late 2024. At least for this year, the Summer’s Edge at Camp Thoreau program has been discontinued, per the Thoreau Club website.
Pinebrook reworked its concept after initial hearings.
The update, Affordable Housing Trust Chair Keith Bergman told The Bridge, is “vastly superior.”
Some neighbors have still criticized expected traffic, the aesthetics of big new buildings in their wooded neighborhood, and planned tree cutting.
The project won Zoning Board of Appeals approval last April and showed signs of life in recent months through procedural real estate filings. Developers have been seeking state approval for a planned wastewater treatment system, Town Planner Elizabeth Hughes told attendees at Acton’s latest quarterly housing roundtable. Between Novo and Thoreau, some fear the effect on public schools of more than 400 new housing units coming online. School capacity questions also loom around the redevelopment of the MCI-Acton prison and other sites, but Superintendent Laurie Hunter assured the town Finance Committee on March 5 that “we’ve got some space” for additional students.
