Dreams in Dorchester

DIVERSITY BOSTON

How one new development is strengthening a neighborhood’s multicultural identity

December 04, 2011|By Jenifer B. McKim, Globe Staff

John Cruz, developer of Harvard Commons in Dorchester. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff )

John Cruz spent much of his childhood by the side of his carpenter father, pounding nails and sanding homes in some of Massachusetts’ swankier suburbs. He learned early on that people live differently - some in the crowded triple-deckers and high-rise apartments near his Dorchester home and others in spacious houses with landscaped lawns.

So when Cruz grew up and expanded his father’s business, he dreamed of bringing the quality housing he’d seen in the suburbs into the city neighborhoods he loves: Harvard Commons is the realization of that dream.

The development, still in its beginning stages, now includes 15 colorful, custom-built homes, from 1,800 to 3,500 square feet, on a wide sidewalk-lined street at the former site of the Boston State Hospital in Dorchester. Homeowners have been purchasing the properties since 2007 for prices ranging from $419,000 to $590,000 - values significantly higher than the median home price in the area, known more for affordable housing than newly minted homes.

Cruz, who owns one of the state’s largest black-owned development companies, believes he is helping the community by attracting higher-income professionals to what was once a neighborhood dumping ground, littered with trash, discarded mattresses, and burned-out cars. His buyers are an ethnically diverse and largely highly educated group - drawn to the site because of its convenient location and amenities of the suburbs. They hold jobs in law enforcement, banking, technology, and higher education; some of them have PhDs. In contrast, the median household income for the Dorchester ZIP code is $36,025, and fewer than 18 percent of people 25 years or older hold bachelor’s or advanced degrees, according to the census.

“This is what the communities of color need more to stabilize,’’ says Cruz, 68, whose family comes from Cape Verde. “Any of these people could have lived anywhere. They chose to live here. It makes me feel we are doing the right thing.’’

The project is part of a multiprong effort to improve the site of the Boston State Hospital, a facility for the mentally ill that has been closed since 1979. It neighbors the residential community Olmsted Green, another new development of rentals and town homes, as well as the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Boston Nature Center, offering two miles of trails and boardwalks.

Evelyn Friedman, the city’s housing chief and director of the Department of Neighborhood Development, says she is thrilled to see both affordable housing and market-rate homes springing up at the site.

“It used to be a very desolate area,’’ she says. “This brings a new liveliness.’’