Congregational Retirement Homes to Expand to Green Street Baptist Church Building
By Ellen Putnam
Last week, Congregational Retirement Homes purchased the Green Street Baptist Church building, which came up for sale after the congregation closed its doors last year. Congregational Retirement Homes plans to remodel the former church building to create 30 or more new affordable housing units for seniors.
Congregational Retirement Homes was founded in the late 1960s as a ministry of First Congregational Church in Melrose, with the intention of providing affordable housing for seniors in the community. The organization owns and runs three buildings in Melrose: the Levi Gould and Clarence Fuller Houses at the corner of West Foster and Cottage Streets (across the street from the Milano Center) and the Jonathan Cochrane House on Grove Street.
All of the more than 300 units across the three buildings offer affordable housing for seniors ages 62 and older, or for individuals with disabilities. Some of the units are run through the Melrose Housing Authority, while others are rented directly by Congregational Retirement Homes. While the buildings do not offer assisted living, they provide a variety of services for residents, including transportation for grocery shopping and other needs, and close collaboration with Mystic Valley Elder Services.
One of the challenges of the Green Street Baptist Church site is the lack of a parking lot, or any location on the site where parking could easily be added. Congregational Retirement Homes does not plan to add parking to the site.
But Congregational Retirement Homes Vice President Ward Hamilton does not anticipate that the lack of parking will be an obstacle to finding residents who want to move in. Currently, over half of the residents at the three existing Congregational Retirement Homes buildings do not have parking, and residents apply to live in the buildings without the promise of a parking space. Even without guaranteed parking, Hamilton reported, there is currently a two-year waiting list for units in the existing three buildings.
Hamilton also emphasized that, while the building could likely be reconfigured to hold many more units, plans will be drawn up with the goal of creating comfortably sized units for residents.
Plans for converting the Green Street Baptist Church building into residential units will require city approval before the project can go forward - a process that is expected to begin sometime in the next several months.
All of the units that are planned for the Green Street Baptist Church building would add to the city’s affordable housing inventory. This would bring Melrose closer to the 10% affordable housing figure that would allow the city to begin rejecting unfavorable projects that are filed under state housing law Chapter 40B without the risk of being overruled by the state’s Housing Appeals Committee.
“This project is going to be a win-win for everyone,” said Hamilton. “We’re all really excited.”
Rev. Lawrence T. Starr
Photo from Melrose Alliance Against Violence
Congregational Retirement Homes plans to name the new residential building for former Green Street Baptist Church pastor and longtime community member Lawrence T. Starr.
From Congregational Retirement Homes: Rev. Lawrence T. Starr, a native of Malden, MA, attended Ottawa University in Ottawa, KS, where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology in 1972. He then attended Andover Newton Theological School where he matriculated with a Masters of Divinity in 1976 and was ordained that same year at his home church, the First Baptist Church of Malden. During his 40 years in ministry Rev. Starr served as Minister of the White Street Baptist Church in East Boston, as the Associate Minister at the First Baptist in Melrose, MA, as an Interim Minister at the First Baptist Church in Beverly, MA. before beginning his thirty years as pastor at Green Street Baptist Church in Melrose. He served in a variety of leadership positions in the American Baptist denomination, was involved with mission work domestically and internationally and served as a member of the Board of Directors in a number of civic organizations. Larry is currently retired, living with his wife, Valerie, in Chelmsford, MA.
