Construction of 210 apartments in downtown Malden is coming along nicely. The apartments, in two buildings at 100-150 Exchange Street, are being built by Combined Properties, Inc and when completed will be six stories and 70 feet tall.
Built on a 97,688 square foot lot, the two buildings will have a combined gross area of 273,171 square feet, including 1,951 square feet of retail space on the ground floor of one of the buildings. The residences are planned to be a mix of studios, one-bedroom units and two-bedroom apartments.
Despite being less than a thousand feet from Malden Station, and a similar distance to a variety of grocery stores and neighborhood amenities, the project still has 170 parking spaces. Adding insult to injury is the fact that downtown Malden is essentially a giant parking crater – there is a parking garage on either side of the project site, plus more within a short walk and a staggering square footage of surface parking in every direction.
To make matters worse, much like Quincy, Malden has invested a great deal of money and effort in ensuring that all of its streets are very wide and fast stroads with plenty of sweeping curves and short light cycles to keep the predestrians nimble and has cut off the station from the downtown with one. To top everything off they have blocked the sole walkable downtown street from the view of people in the station by building a horrifically ugly city hall across from it. So the carts don’t slow down and the people on foot or bus can’t see anything. No wonder they can’t attract investment.
While the project website still gives an opening date of Spring 2016, the real astonishing thing is that the plans were first filed in 2012. That’s a staggering delay.
The development is designed for the luxury category, with a fitness center, a business center and services like dry-cleaning pick-up.
