No Exterior Renovations Planned for 40 Berkeley Street Building, Owner Says

Renovation plans for 40 Berkeley Street will not affect the exterior of the former YWCA building, part-owner Mark Maloney said during Tuesday night's Ellis Neighborhood Association meeting.

“It is our intent, our long-term plan, to end up exactly the same place” we’re in now, he said. “We don’t intend to build anything on the outside of the building, we don’t intent to build anything on top of the building.”

Instead, Maloney and his team plan to focus on enhancing the interior of the mid-century modern structure, which will receive several new paint jobs and updated furnishings soon. Long-term improvements include painting all the rooms in historically accurate colors, renovating outdated bathrooms and making the building more energy efficient with a new heating system and new windows. The building could also benefit from an air conditioning system, Maloney said.

“That’s why the rent is so low,” he joked on Tuesday.

Maloney and his wife, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy Chairwoman Georgia Murray, own nearly 70 percent of the 75,000 square-foot mixed-use building. The remaining 30 percent is owned by Project Place, a South End nonprofit that runs Betty’s Place, a transitional housing program for women at 40 Berkeley.

Maloney and Murray teamed up with Project Place to for $8.5 million in December of 2010.

On Tuesday, Maloney said buying the building fulfilled a longstanding passion for him and his wife, who live around the corner. The , which offers affordable accommodations to tourists and students, attracts travelers from all over the world, he said. A map hanging in the common area is filled with pins marking the native lands of the hostel’s guests.

Seventy beds are also rented by students from the nearby , a situation that has produced complaints of noise and late-night commotion outside the building. Maloney said he is working with the Institute to make sure such behavior stops - he’s already threatened to install security cameras along side entrances if students are found smoking marijuana there.

“Our guests deserve not to live in a dormitory while they’re here,” he said. “We want to be good neighbors.”

Under the new ownership, 55 rooms will continue to be used by Betty's Place to provide transitional housing for women in need. The 14 women currently living in the building have been invited to remain, Maloney confirmed.

As new tenants move in on both sides of the building, Maloney and his wife hope to be actively involved in the selection process, if the city allows it.

“That means the onus is on us to make sure they’re right,” Maloney said of all the building's inhabitants. “It would be a major change.”

An open house for all neighbors will be held at 40 Berkeley once renovations are complete. Maloney estimated that short-term improvement work would be conlcuded in the early spring.