Affordable housing project at Washington Street nursing home undergoing redesign

By Bobby Grady at The Gloucester Times

Two housing developers are teaming up and looking to turn a vacant nursing home on Washington Street into an affordable housing complex.

Harborlight Homes, a nonprofit community development coordination group focused on creating access to affordable housing, and the Planning Office of Urban Affairs, a nonprofit housing developer affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, are looking to turn the defunct Gloucester Healthcare skilled nursing home at 272 Washington St. into affordable housing for rent.

Initially, the developers were proposing to build 55 units for rent and seven townhomes for purchase, but according to Harborlight Homes Executive Director Andrew Defranza, the state issued new tax credits and resources for affordable home ownership. Because of this, the seven townhomes is now too low of a number for the state to allow the project to advance as initially proposed.

“It’s a long way of saying it’s probably going to be all rentals because the ownership path does not seem to be viable,” Defranza said.

The developers now have to go back to the drawing board and redesign the project, Defranza said. The redesign will take into account comments from neighbors and city officials as well as the state.

“There’s going to be a redesign of the rental building to accommodate more units due to the absence of the seven ownership units,” he said.

In late 2022, the 99-bed long-term care facility closed its doors and has sat vacant ever since. The Planning Office of Urban Affairs purchased the site in 2024.

In 2024, the state looked into turning the vacant building into a homeless shelter but chose not to pursue the idea.

The city has already shown some support for the project, allocating $125,000 from the Community Preservation Act fund, a pool of money collected through a 1% surcharge on property tax, to help fund the project. The funding is not impacted by the redesign, according to Defranza.

Defranza said next steps for the project include creating the proposed redesign and presenting it to neighbors of 272 Washington St. to ensure their concerns are addressed and the Zoning Board of Appeals before going before several other municipal boards.