City to move forward with Cardinal Cottage renovations

The city is ready to take the next steps to renovate Cardinal Cottage into affordable housing using Waltham’s Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

At a meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy informed MAHTF trustees that the city has completed the plans it needs to submit the project to the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Board of Survey and Planning to get all necessary permits.

Cardinal Cottage is a historic house on the property of the former Fernald State School that the MAHTF is renovating into two units of affordable housing. The project has been under discussion since 2017, and the city has completed landscaping and renovations to the building’s exterior.

Trustees also learned that the senior affordable housing units built at the former Hardy Elementary School are all occupied. 

In new projects, Mayor McCarthy announced that she had received three bid proposals from contractors with plans to turn other buildings on the Fernald property into affordable housing. She said the proposals include an adult day care, veterans’ housing and extended-support young adult housing. She plans to talk to these bidders in the new year.

Mayor McCarthy added that the city’s purchasing agent, Crystal Philpott, has put together a proposal to request bids from contractors to convert the former Elks lodge, located at the corner of Lexington and School streets, into affordable women’s housing.