BPDA board OKs nearly 900 new apartments and condos around the city

The board also approved a long-term plan to transform the industrial district in Newmarket

A 220-unit apartment building being planned in East Boston at the former site of the New England Casket Co., alongside the Belle Isle Marsh near the Orient Heights MBTA station. The project, proposed by real estate development firm Redgate and the Tobia family, was approved by the Boston Planning & Development Agency board on Thursday.Arrowstreet

The Boston Planning and Development Agency board on Thursday approved 876 housing units in six neighborhoods around the city, including a 220-unit apartment complex at the site of the former New England Casket Co. in East Boston, along with planning guidelines for the Newmarket neighborhood.

The PLAN: Newmarket initiative outlines goals to transform the industrial district into “a 21st century economy” with a mix of uses, including traditional truck-dependent industry such as food production and distribution, along with new and emerging industries such as artificial intelligence. The plan envisions “a place where people from a wide range of professional backgrounds will continue to find employment in a variety of existing and new businesses.”

In the short term, the plan doesn’t specifically address the escalating homelessness and drug use around Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard that have plagued Newmarket businesses in recent years, but aims to address “stakeholder concerns about the built environment through a more long-range focus on public realm and land use in the coming decades.”

The Newmarket warehouse district, located between the South End, South Boston and Roxbury.Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff

The approved housing projects include a six-story, 206-unit apartment complex at 1270 Commonwealth Ave. in Allston, another six-story, 116-unit apartment building at 500 Western Ave., and a 44-unit, four-story apartment at 25-37 Dighton St. in Brighton, along with a mix of 69 market-rate apartments and 48 affordable condominiums at the Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral at 165 Park Drive in the Fenway.

At the former New England Casket Co. site in East Boston, the board approved a six-story, 220-unit apartment building proposed by real estate developer Redgate and the Tobia family. The family ran the business for nearly eight decades until a nine-alarm fire destroyed their building in 2019.

“We have been working very closely with them over the last three years or so, just to come up with a proposal that’s feasible and responsive to the community, especially just given their generational history in East Boston,” said Lizbeth Bello, a senior vice president with Redgate, on Thursday.

Other approved housing projects include a 41-unit condo building at 9 McKay Place in East Boston, a 44-unit condo at 1702 Hyde Park Ave. and a 28-unit apartment at 1801 River St., both in Hyde Park, and a 36-unit condominium at 96-100 Rockwood St. in Jamaica Plain.

The board also approved a three-story home for the Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center in Dorchester near the Franklin Park Zoo.

It was the final meeting for board member Mike Monahan, a top official with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who had served on the board since 2013. Monahan served as acting chair during Thursday’s meeting. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu earlier this month tapped former Boston Housing Authority administrator Kate Bennett and Raheem Shepard, a business representative with the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, to serve on the board replacing Monahan and longtime Jamaica Plain business owner Carol Downs, who stepped down last June.