Apartment Developers See Opportunity In Boston Suburbs As More Towns Are ‘Open For Business’
A growing number of state and local initiatives to boost housing production are leading developers to eye Boston's suburbs.
Developers and other housing experts at Bisnow's 2025 Boston Multifamily Summit last week said that the combination of initiatives are creating more opportunities to build housing in the communities that surround the city.
Greystar Director of Investments Austin Smyth said his firm has built thousands of units of housing in Everett in part due to the willingness of city officials to add more housing.
“We've seen the development pipeline pick up in the suburbs and some of those more affordable markets,” Smyth said. “I would say certain towns are definitely open for business.”
Boston remains an expensive place to build housing, despite Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's program to entice developers to convert office buildings to residential buildings. Converting these properties in Boston's dense downtown may still be more difficult than transforming suburban offices to housing in municipalities with more space, according to The Collaborative Cos. Vice President Laura Gollinger.
“The reality is you've got these huge office parks in some of these suburban towns that are never going to be back to where they were,” she added. “I think the towns are starting to recognize, 'Okay, well, as opposed to having a bunch of buildings sitting empty at 50% to 60% vacancy, let's get this development happening.’”
One of the state's largest office-to-residential conversions is happening in Worcester, where Synergy is working on a 220-unit project. The development has received funding from state and local officials. It is also part of the state's Commercial Conversion Initiative program, a planning program that assists developers undertaking such projects.
Local town officials are changing policy to make development more affordable. For example, Cambridge, Somerville and Salem have lowered or eliminated parking minimums. It can cost upward of $100K to build a single parking space, Gollinger said.
“That's a big-ticket item,” Gollinger said. “Those are big, critical things that can impact a project getting built.”
Gov. Maura Healey’s office said in August that more than 90,000 units of housing have either been completed or planned for development since she took office in early 2023. Despite this, Massachusetts still has a 222,000-unit deficit of housing over the next 10 years, according to a state housing plan released in February.
Healey signed the $5B Affordable Homes Act in August 2024. She also has implemented the state's MBTA Communities Law, passed by her predecessor. The law requires cities and towns with transit stops or adjacent to transit stops to create by-right multifamily zoning. It has already attracted developers to towns and cities that have historically barred new development.
The state has also begun to offer up roughly 450 acres of publicly owned land for housing development. On Wednesday, the Healey administration announced it sold a 10-acre parcel to Lena New Boston II and 2Life Development Inc. for the development of a 287-unit project in Mattapan.
State officials have been throwing out other ideas to jumpstart housing production. In September, Healey announced a proposed update of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act to fast-track reviews of specific housing projects. There will be public hearings on this proposal later this month.
Developers are tracking Healey's proposal closely, VHB New England Residential Team Leader Evan Miller said.
“We think it's a very good change to the policy to bring more housing online,” Miller said.
