BOSTON, Mass. — The long-awaited Nubian Square Ascends project in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood will move forward as a two-story building instead of the seven stories its team once planned, with construction now targeted for next spring.
The reworked building is meant to hold a restaurant, a theater and space for job training. Its overall size has been cut by roughly three quarters from the earlier proposal.
Richard Taylor, chairman of the developer Taylor-Smith Cos. and the project’s lead proponent, said the team gave up its seven-story goal but kept the purpose behind the project intact.
The site sits at 2164 Washington Street in the heart of Nubian Square, on a parcel of about 87,879 square feet. The plan on file with the city’s planning agency describes a far larger complex, with about 365,475 square feet of gross floor area spread across retail, entertainment, artist housing, commercial space and a 300-space parking garage.
That filing pitched the development as a cultural, entertainment and arts hub for the neighborhood, built by a development team made up entirely of minority partners. It also promised roughly 900 permanent jobs, along with contracting work for minority- and women-owned businesses through every phase.
The city lists the effort as a large project under its Article 80 review. A notice of project change filed in July 2023 sought to make every residential unit in the project part of its housing program.
The city’s project page also notes that the parcel lies in a key institutional corridor, and that the development was expected to draw science, academic and medical research uses.
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