Construction of the $45 million Axis Apartments on Lexington Road is moving steadily along since we last stopped by in April. Last week, we stopped by the Irish Hill site across from Headliner’s Music Hall to snap a few photos of the site.
“Considering all the rain we’ve had we’re doing pretty well with the schedule,” Brian Evans, an associate at developer Cityscape Residential, told Broken Sidewalk. “It’s been a difficult year to build.”
Still, the five-story, 300-unit project is moving right along. “We are putting the roof trusses on the first building now,” Evans said. He said the building to the north, off Lexington Road, will be next to top out—it’s already up to the fourth floor. Workers began framing the walls of the western building along Lexington just this morning. The elevator column has stood for some time like a concrete block obelisk on the site.
“We will be delivering units in [the first] building in the middle of January,” Evans said. He noted that the clubhouse and leasing office in that building is scheduled to open by November 1 and that pre-leasing will begin in mid-October. Units range from $800 to $1,700 per month. “We’re projected to be complete with the project in the middle of July,” he added.
Watching the construction site, you’ll notice some red-colored framing going up around the perimeter. “That’s fire treated lumber,” Evans explained. He said it’s typical to see on a five-story, type 3 construction building. “Once you get up to five stories, you’ve got some special fire treating you’ve got to do.”
Walking along Lexington, you can begin to get a sense of the mass of the structure defining the street edge as an urban place. Distillery Commons has long provided that edge to the south, but the north side has never had the same street wall.
Besides adding to the urban feeling of the area, Evans hopes the buildings will also slow down Lexington Road’s notorious speeding motorists. “I’m hopeful that when the third building comes up it will slow traffic a lot on Lexington Road,” he said. “When you’re out here from 3:00 to 5:00, they come around the corner heading to Grinstead at a pretty good pace.”
And once the Axis’s 300 units begin filling with tenants next summer, Evans believes we could see additional development take shape in the area. “We’re hopeful it will spur some further redevelopment in the corridor,” he said.
Now the only thing missing is a bike lane.