About the Project

Mary Ellen McCormack’s “Building B” will be a high-impact building with frontage on Old Colony and Divine Way, closest to Moakley Park. The mixed income apartment building will be 9 stories tall, over an underground parking garage. The 116’ tall building will be approximately 400,000 square feet and consist of 300 apartments over ground floor retail space and parking.

View the final presentation here.

An Interview with Andrew Colbert

March 2022 | Andrew Colbert is the Vice President of Development at WinnCompanies.

1. Why did you apply for the accelerator and how do you think using mass timber is uniquely beneficial to your project?

WinnDevelopment has a decade’s long commitment to developing high performance, resilient communities across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. As an industry, we have made significant strides toward reducing the operational carbon intensity of new and existing buildings – as demonstrated by our own pipeline of Passive House and deep energy retrofit projects. However, we applied for the accelerator to expand our own capacity and understanding of embodied carbon, and how the use of mass timber can help us deliver a truly sustainable product. Evaluating mass timber for Mary Ellen McCormack Building B will not only potentially improve the carbon intensity of that building, but may have a ripple affect cross the entire multi-phased, multi-building Mary Ellen McCormack site and WinnDevelopment pipeline.

2. What is exciting to you about your project as it relates to advancing the use of mass timber in the region?

The scale of Mary Ellen McCormack, at more than 3,000 units of new, housing, offers an exciting opportunity to rapidly accelerate the use of mass timber while delivering beautiful, resilient, and responsible housing to mixed income households.

3. What are some challenges you’ve experienced or seen in trying to utilize mass timber? How will this program support you in overcoming these challenges?

Mass timber is still new to the market, presenting many unknowns and perceived risks among design teams and builders alike. This program will provide crucial and tangible learning opportunities at the project level, not only potentially transforming buildings in design today, but all buildings program participants work on for years to come.

4. If you could only tell the general public one thing to remember about mass timber construction, what would it be?

While we have a lot to learn in this program, mass timber construction presents a way to build new buildings with sustainable, environmentally responsible materials now.