Google Invests $28 Million in New Charlesview Apartment Complex

Tech giant Google invested approximately $28 million last month in the new Charlesview Apartment Complex, which will offer 240 low-income housing units near the Brighton Mills Shopping Center.

Harvard has already agreed to provide $72 million for the new structure, which will replace the old Charlesview complex—a concrete cluster of 213 low-income units located near Harvard Business School. The apartment complex was originally built in the 1970s.

According to University Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp—who is heading the University’s development in Allston along with Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 and other officials—the University was not involved in Google’s investment.

Google spokesperson Jim Prosser said that Google decided to invest in the Charlesview Apartment Complex because the project provided an opportunity to gain profit and expand its presence in the area.

Investments like Charlesview “actually are attractive deals to Google from a financial perspective,” he said. Prosser added that the company tries to invest “especially in places where we already have presence,” referring to the company’s office located at 5 Cambridge Center in Cambridge.

Google’s investment in Charlesview comes over a year after it made an $86 million investment in low-income and senior citizen housing units in seven communities in the Midwest and California in August 2010.

In 2009, Harvard gained possession of the old Charlesview Complex in a land swap with the Charlesview Board of Directors. The University consolidated its land holdings in Allston, and the deal paved the way for the construction of the new apartment complex, which began this past April.

In the long term, Community Builders Inc., the project’s nonprofit developer, intends to add a 100-unit condominium tower to the Brighton complex. About one fourth of the units in the tower will be targeted toward low- to moderate-income residents.

The developer also envisions constructing retail stores, a park, a community center, and an underground parking garage.

Prosser added that there have been no discussions about future collaboration between Google and Harvard. The University has yet to announce its plans for the old apartment complex.

—Staff writer Nathalie R. Miraval can be reached at nmiraval@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.