Bunker Hill Housing Redevelopment, Charlestown, Boston

Boston’s Bunker Hill development opened in 1940 and runs to 42 buildings. All of them are coming down, replaced by 15 new residential buildings holding 2,699 units, over roughly a decade. Every one of the 1,110 existing public housing units is replaced as deeply affordable, 1,010 on site and 100 elsewhere in Charlestown, and every relocated household holds a right to return.

Project Scope

Building F started construction in April 2026 and sets the template. It’s nine storeys and 266 units, 208 market-rate and 58 affordable, built to Passive House in mass timber and CLT with prefabricated interior and exterior wall panels on an 18-month schedule. Suffolk Construction is GC, Stantec is architect, and Leggat McCall Properties and Joseph J. Corcoran Company are co-developers with the Boston Housing Authority as owner. The $176.2 million comes from a $122 million Cottonwood Group construction loan plus equity from Boston’s new Housing Accelerator Fund, the city’s first municipal revolving housing loan fund, alongside a $30 million city infrastructure grant. The job runs under a 100% union Project Labor Agreement.

Why It Matters

Public housing redevelopment fails politically far more often than it fails technically, and it usually fails on the question of whether existing residents come back. This one is structured around a contractual tri-party decision process between the housing authority, the developer and the Charlestown Resident Alliance, so residents hold a formal seat rather than a consultative one. Pairing that with Passive House and panelised mass timber makes Building F worth watching on two counts at once: whether the governance model holds across a decade, and whether prefabrication actually delivers the 18-month schedule at this unit count.

Project Team & Details