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City Realty losing two buildings on Allston Square
Foreclosure and auction

JJ Manning Auctioneers announced on its website this week the auction of 4-8 Franklin St. and 20 Braintree St., formerly parts of the City Realty Allston Square redevelopment project.
The building permits for the project were originally issued in 2021 and the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) Board originally approved the massive project in 2019.
Allston Square was originally slated for 344 units in six buildings, as pitched by City Realty. The two buildings now on the auction block are 4-8 Franklin St. and 20 Braintree St.
The building at 4-8 Franklin is a gateway building to Allston, as drivers coming in from Lower Allston see its mural and the painted-on scenes on its facade. It was known as Allston Hall, and the original plan for the site from City Realty was for nine residential units, to go along with the developed Allston Lofts, which share the same address. The property up for auction is the site with the mural of the neighborhood, sitting just next door.
JJ Manning is listing it as 8,160 square feet of warehouse/commercial.
The 20 Braintree St. building was slated for 66 units as a seven-story, mixed-use building with 24 parking spaces and one ground- level retail space. Currently, there is still an industrial/commercial building there.
The first project change reduced the total 244 condominium units to 66 condo units, with 278 rental units instead of the 100 rental units originally proposed. The second project change rearranged the entire project’s affordability for all of the Allston Square development, as well as converting the proposed condominium homeownership units at 8-12 Wilton St., 10 Highgate St., and the above-mentioned 20 Braintree St., which phased out condominiums on the site entirely.
The impetus for the change, according to the attorney representing the project at the time Donald Wiest, was “Commercial financing for residential condominiums may not become readily available again for several years,” he wrote to the city. “Yet the City of Boston continues to experience a pressing need for thousands of new housing units – and the vacancy rate in the Allston neighborhood averages below 1 percent. It would not be in the best interest of either the proponent or the surrounding community for these sites to remain vacant for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for a market recovery. Multi-family residential rental projects do, however, remain financially viable, with capital partners available and ready to invest in Boston.”
The last project change, approved late in 2025, reduced the amount of required parking in several buildings of the project.
City Realty did not respond to a request for comment before The Bulletin’s deadline.
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Jeff Sullivan Covers local news and community stories.

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