WORCESTER, Mass. — WinnCompanies has started construction of Residences on Lincoln Square, a $51 million project to transform the historic Worcester Boys Club property into 80 affordable apartment homes for adults 55 and older.
The historic structure hosted one of the first Boys Clubs in the nation in 1930 and later served as Worcester Vocational High School for decades before becoming vacant in 2006.
The WinnDevelopment effort will employ adaptive reuse techniques to preserve and renovate the 94-year-old building as 16 apartment homes and a variety of community spaces, while erecting a five-story apartment building alongside it to house 64 new apartments. The two buildings will be connected on the ground floor by a single-story glass walkway.
The new community will feature a total of 19 studio apartments, 46 one-bedroom units and 15 two-bedrooms apartments. Sixty-eight of the apartments will be leased to households earning up to 60 percent of area median income (AMI) and 12 units will be available to those earning up to 30 percent AMI. Eleven of the apartments will be set aside as housing for residents with disabilities.
Work on both buildings will occur simultaneously with completion expected in the spring of 2026.
F.W. Madigan Co. Inc. is serving as the general contractor with Maugel DeStefano Architects serving as architect. Other members of the development team include Petersen Engineering as mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer; The Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. (PAL) as historic consultant; Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. (VHB) as civil engineer; Odeh Engineers Inc. as structural engineer; and Building Evolution Corp. (BEC) and Sustainable Comfort Inc. (SCI) as Passive House consultants.
The 63,000-square-foot new construction apartment building on the Boys Club site has been designed and will be built to the Passive House Institute U.S. standard, the most rigorous energy performance standard in the world. It will be an all-electric property, meaning it will not utilize fossil fuels, further advancing the Commonwealth’s zero carbon emissions goals. The existing four-story, 48,000-square-foot building will meet Enterprise Green Communities design standards.
Once completed, WinnResidential, the property management arm of WinnCompanies, will manage the asset. The property, situated on the northern edge of the city’s downtown, abuts the World War One Memorial at Lincoln Square, which city officials plan to renovate simultaneously with the construction of Residences on Lincoln Square.
The project is made possible through financing, loans and tax credits provided by the Massachusetts Executive Office for Housing and Livable Communities; the Massachusetts Housing Partnership; MassDevelopment’s Underutilized Property Program; HOME and Affordable Housing Trust funds from the City of Worcester, the U.S. National Park Service and Massachusetts Historic Commission; Rockland Trust Bank; MassHousing; and BlueHub Capital.
The property is in a Commercial Corridor Overlay District designed to encourage the preservation and redevelopment of historical, cultural and architectural assets in the city.