New Bedford native to return to develop housing at the former Keystone property

NEW BEDFORD — Developer Lauren Jezienicki grew up in New Bedford in the Buttonwood Park area and as a child would often accompany her mother, an accountant, downtown while she carried out her business.

She said she’s excited to reinvest in the downtown with her first development in New Bedford as the prospective owner of the former Keystone site in downtown New Bedford.

Jezienicki’s multifamily development company One Circle Co., plans to redevelop the property into a mixed-use building featuring 45 units of market-rate housing and approximately 500 square feet of ground floor commercial space.

One Circle Co. has entered a purchase and sale agreement with MassDevelopment to buy the vacant lot at 193-197 Union St. in New Bedford, the site of the former Keystone building. The deal has not been closed yet.

The state’s development finance agency and land bank works with businesses, nonprofits, banks and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth.

MassDevelopment solicited proposals for developers as part of a public process followed by interviews and a negotiating process.

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What happened to the Keystone building?

Built in 1861, the Keystone building served as a furniture store from 1914 to 1981. It was demolished in 2004 after years of vacancy and disrepair. MassDevelopment purchased the property in 2014 to prepare the site for private investment and redevelopment.

The Keystone property is in an area previously served by MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative, a program designed to accelerate economic growth within focused districts in Gateway Cities.

MassDevelopment’s purchase of the property and planning for temporary activation and permanent redevelopment happened in conjunction with TDI Equity, MassDevelopment’s program for investing in catalytic real estate in TDI Districts. Additional investment in the district was made through the TDI Creative Cities pilot program from 2020 to 2023.

“We appreciate the work that MassDevelopment has done to advance market-rate housing at this important downtown site,” New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell in a press release.

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Lauren Jezienicki's path to becoming a developer

After Jezienicki graduated from college and was working in Boston doing on-site sales and marketing for a project and sitting in on meetings with developers that led her down her career path.

She said she worked in the Washington, D.C. area for 11 years in the development field, working on projects in Northern Virginia and Maryland while wearing many different hats, taking a break partway through to concentrate on real estate and real estate finance.

When she had a chance to move to the Boston area and be closer to home, she went to work with a development company for six years. In the process, she said she wanted to do a deeper dive into healthier and more sustainable buildings so they will be more enjoyable to live in.

She said when the COVID pandemic set in, she focused on health and well-being and air quality and how people were working at home and in 2020 decided to start her own company with the vision of creating healthy and sustainable buildings.

This is her second One Circle project.

“It’s located right there on Union Street in the charming downtown historic area so I knew it would be a really exciting opportunity,” she said.

She said the South Coast Rail project coming to New Bedford is also a motivating factor.

What's the timeline for the project?

Jezienicki had a preliminary kick-off meeting with city officials a couple of months ago and is continuing to advance the design with the goal of filing for permits early next year. There’s a site plan review process and a special permit process to follow.

“The goal will be to get that process going in earnest early next year and to get it permitted and finish the design,” she said. “Once we have all the permits in place, we will finish all the construction documents and fully engineer everything and hope to start construction after that.”

There is no formal timeline for the process at this time, she said. The property is in the city’s downtown overlay district, which she said will help guide the approval process.

She estimated that it will take about a year to go through permitting and the beginning of the design process and another several months to finish the design and start construction.

She said it could take about three years to complete the project.

Jezienicki will be working with Isenberg Projects, a creating consulting agency based in Boston that will help the company prepare and activate the site with temporary installations and pop-up events in the spring and summer of 2024.

About MassDevelopment’s role

MassDevelopment Board of Directors Chair and Secretary of Economic Development Yvonne Hao said in the release that “the Healey-Driscoll Administration is pleased that MassDevelopment’s thoughtful stewardship of this lot has attracted private development that will spur new housing and commercial space in New Bedford.”

During fiscal 2023, MassDevelopment financed or managed 545 projects generating investment of more than $2 billion in the Massachusetts economy. These projects are estimated to create or support 10,522 jobs and build or preserve 1,583 housing units.

“There is a renaissance happening in downtown New Bedford, which is why we are thrilled to enter into an agreement with One Circle Company and see this blighted property transformed into a new building where people can live, work, and do business,” MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera said in the release.

“MassDevelopment has a legacy of converting challenging properties like the former Keystone lot into sites that generate tax revenue for municipalities, stimulate neighborhoods and commercial districts, and create housing and jobs,” he said.

Standard-Times staff writer Kathryn Gallerani can be reached at kgallerani@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @kgallreporter. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: MassDevelopment enters purchase-and-sale agreement with One Circle Co.