Rentals, Not Condos, Developer Says, Despite Neighbor Concerns

A group of concerned neighbors is not happy with a change within a new development on St. George Street to turn condos into rental apartments.

In the community room of the District 4 Police Station, over a dozen South End residents gathered Wednesday afternoon asking for an explanation in the St. George Street development switch.

With the Newton-based N&P Associates, LLC project manager and a City of Boston liaison present, neighbors to the new development asked why the 33-unit building was being changed from condominiums to rental apartments, and asked how to prevent the change.

"I think most of us here feel like a deer in headlights," said Sherwood Hughes, who lives right next door to the construction. "Most people here thought this was going to be condos."

According to Hilani Morales, Neighborhood Coordinator for the City of Boston, the city can not prevent N&P Associates, LLC from converting the units from condos to rentals.

While neighbors said they were unaware of the possibility of rentals units, project manager Peter Zagorianakos said that the final decision was only made recently.

"We have always been on the fence about whether they were condos or rentals," he said.

According to Zagorianakos, 20 of the units will be ready to live in by October, eight months after the original projected date. The rest will be complete by December.

The tense meeting ended when Zagorianakos abruptly left.

"Everyone will be moving in an out. [Rental units] will destroy the neighborhood," Sikiru Akinfolarin, a condominium owner on St. George Street, said. "Rentals will make it look bad."

The development lies on the site of what was once the long-vacant Bethel Tabernacle Pentecostal Church on St. George Street – known fondly by some locals as the “Jesus Saves Church." The church was torn down in 2011 to make way for the development.