East Boston 295 Waldemar Ave: 35 Apartments Proposed

A five-story apartment building with 35 units is proposed for 295 Waldemar Avenue in East Boston, on a corner where a small car-rental lot and a Route 1A billboard sit today. Plans filed with the Boston Planning Department by Joe Donovan’s MG2 Development call for replacing that lot with housing between the Suffolk Downs redevelopment and the Orient Heights housing development, according to Universal Hub.

The project page on Boston Plans lists the site at 11,675 square feet of land and about 33,140 square feet of gross floor area. The filing describes 35 residential units, including six Inclusionary Zoning units, plus 18 off-street vehicle parking spaces, 35 bicycle spaces and other amenities. The comment period on the project page runs through Nov. 16, 2026. Project manager Ebony DaRosa is listed as the city contact.

What MG2 filed for 295 Waldemar Avenue

Universal Hub reported on Oct. 16, 2026, that the mix would include studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, with a little more than half of the units planned as one-bedrooms. Six apartments would be rented to households earning no more than 60 percent of the Boston area median income. MG2 said the billboard facing Route 1A would come down and would not be replaced. The building is described as all-electric, with heat pumps for heating and cooling.

The Boston Plans project description matches the unit count and Inclusionary Zoning figure and places the proposal in the “Under Review” phase. The site sits along McClellan Highway / Route 1A at Waldemar Avenue, a stretch that links East Boston’s residential blocks to the larger Suffolk Downs buildout to the north and industrial and gas-tank sites nearby.

East Boston housing context

East Boston has seen a wave of multifamily filings and larger master-plan work around former industrial and racetrack land. The Waldemar proposal is smaller than the Suffolk Downs district projects but sits on their edge, which means traffic, construction staging and design review will likely draw neighborhood attention during the Article 80 process. The city’s Inclusionary Zoning rules require income-restricted units in projects of this size; the six units at 60 percent of area median income are the share Universal Hub and the Boston Plans page both cite.

Readers tracking other city housing and planning votes can compare this filing with recent coverage of the Cleary Square rezoning board vote in Hyde Park and the Fairmount Apartments modernization in Hyde Park, both of which show how Boston Planning Department review and neighborhood meetings shape what gets built.

Timeline and next steps

As of the Oct. 16 Universal Hub report and the Boston Plans listing, the project is under review rather than board-approved. Public comments are invited through Nov. 16, 2026, on the Boston Plans site. Meeting schedules and document uploads typically appear on the same project page as the Article 80 review advances. No construction start date has been announced in the sources reviewed for this report.

Neighbors, elected officials and advocacy groups often weigh in on height, parking ratios, affordability and how new buildings meet the street on corridors like Route 1A. Those issues are not decided in a Letter of Intent filing; they are argued through written comments, public meetings and, if the project advances, board votes.

Boston Plans lists Article 80 records and comment tools on the same project page, so residents can review uploaded filings as they appear and submit written feedback before the Nov. 16 deadline. Anyone commenting in a language other than English is directed to email the planning department address shown on the project page. Until the board acts, the proposal remains under review and is not an approved permit.

Our Take

This section is analysis and opinion, separate from the reporting above.

Thirty-five units on a leftover car-rental lot will not remake East Boston’s housing market, but the location matters. Putting all-electric, Inclusionary Zoning housing on a highway-facing site next to Suffolk Downs is the kind of incremental fill-in that can either soften a harsh edge or add friction if parking and curb cuts are poorly handled. The billboard removal is a small quality-of-life win if it sticks. The real test is whether the affordable units stay at 60 percent AMI through construction and leasing, and whether the design treats Waldemar Avenue like a neighborhood street rather than a highway frontage. For a sense of how larger commercial real estate moves are landing elsewhere in the city, see our report on the $89 million Motor Mart Garage sale in Back Bay.

Featured photo: Exposed trolley tracks on Orlean Street in East Boston, November 2025, by 4300streetcar, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources

• Universal Hub: Developer proposes 35-unit apartment building on the edge of Suffolk Downs (Oct. 16, 2026)
• Boston Plans: 295 Waldemar Avenue project page
• City of Boston: Planning and Development
• Boston Planning Department (Boston Plans) home