Boston Redevelopment Authority Okays McDonald’s Move

The Boston Redevelopment Authority voted unanimously to approve a plan to relocate Western Ave.’s McDonald’s 75 feet from its current Harvard-owned location in the Brighton Mills shopping center in a board meeting on Tuesday night.

The restaurant at 360 Western Avenue will move east to accommodate the extension of Telford St. The expanded street will provide an efficient drive-through lane for McDonald’s customers.

BRA spokesperson Susan Elsbree said that the plan for the new McDonald’s involves “a beautiful outdoor setting, green space, and bike racks.”

She added that the new McDonald’s will “compliment the green space across the street.”

The McDonald’s now stands near the site where there are plans to move the Charlesview—a residential complex of low-income housing units currently located across from the University’s Science Complex construction site in Allston.

The relocation of the McDonald’s will provide better access to the Charlesview, once the residential complex moves.

The Charlesview will relocate as part of a 2007 land-swap agreement between the complex’s board and the University, an agreement intended to allow the University to consolidate its Allston land holdings while providing residents with much-desired new housing and amenities.

“The [McDonald’s] move allows for the Charlesview project to go forward,” said Elsbree. “It’s important to provide adequate new housing to the Charlesview residents.”

While Elsbree said that the majority of Allston residents supported the plan to move the McDonald’s, some voiced concerns about the building’s design at a community meeting earlier this month.

“The redevelopment of McDonald’s has not considered the six years of urban design and community planning for all of Western Ave.,” said Jane McHale, an Allston resident. “This single-story, stand-alone building will [affect] the design aspects of everything around it, and that is a travesty to the community and to the BRA.”

—Staff writer Sofia E. Groopman can be reached at segroopm@fas.harvard.edu.

—Xi Yu contributed to the reporting of this story.