Rendering by PCA. With birds!
The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved former newsman Phil Balboni's plans to replace the North Coast squid-processing plant at West 2nd and D streets with a five-story, 81-unit apartment building.
Of the 81 apartments, 12 will be rented as affordable, including one three-bedroom unit.
The building will only be four stories on West 2nd St., which has become a mainly residential street, rising to five stories on West 1st Street.
The building will have an underground garage with 60 parking spaces.
Through an aide, City Councilor Ed Flynn called on Balboni to work with the BPDA to try to add in the nine extra spaces he had originally proposed but which the BPDA, in its own approval, told him to delete.
Flynn aide Ana Calderon said Flynn feels Boston has a parking crisis and that while he would prefer new developments have a one-to-one ratio of spaces to units, he recognized work Balboni had done to meet other neighborhood concerns, including reducing the overall number of units from 91, shaving off one floor and agreeing not to build a roof deck.
Balboni attorney Joe Hanley said the building is a short walk from the Broadway T stop.