Third Building of Harbor Place Project to Begin Construction Next Spring

The third building to be constructed as part of the Harbor Place project will mark the completion of the years-long effort to housing and office space to the downtown area. (Courtesy photograph.)

The second phase of the Harbor Place project, which would add 55 units of market rate housing to Merrimack Street, is set to begin construction between March and April next year.

During the Conservation Commission’s meeting Thursday, representatives with The Architectural Group of Chelsea and Bohler Engineering and the Copley Wolff Design Group of Boston revealed construction on the building, which would take place on 60 Merrimack St., is slated to begin either late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter of 2019.

The six-story building will feature one- and two-bedroom housing, additional work to the adjacent boardwalk, 41 underground parking spaces and additional soil and native plant life above part of the roof of the garage. When questioned by committee member Thomas Wylie about why only 41 parking spaces were made available for 55 units, project representative Ron Trombley revealed they had signed a 100-space agreement with the Herbert H. Goecke Parking Deck across the street.

Commission members unanimously approved the project, with the exception that it follows the same conditions established by the first two Harbor Place buildings on Merrimack Street. Committee member Hillary Rogers had to abstain from the vote.

Harbor Place opened its first two buildings in fall 2017 on the grounds of the former Woolworth building through a partnership between the Planning office for Urban Affairs of the Archdiocese and the Greater Haverhill Foundation. The two feature mixed-income housing, a satellite campus of UMass Lowell and the offices of MTM Insurance and the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce.

As WHAV previously reported, sponsors of the project purchased the Lahey medical building previously occupying 60 Merrimack St. for just under $2.5 million in March 2016.