Village at Brookline, WinnResidential
Affordable Community of the Year

The Village at Brookline (TVAB) is a 307-unit mixed-income community, located in Brookline, Massachusetts. It offers its 362 residents affordable luxury and access to comprehensive resident services in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Boston. The transit-oriented community is steps from the MBTA Green Line and provides easy access to Downtown Boston, Fenway Park and the Longwood Medical Area.
TVAB is situated on two adjacent parcels of land, separated by a set of MBTA Green Line tracks. The parcels are joined by a five-story parking garage, located above the trolley tracks. The larger parcel, located on Village Way, has six brick buildings: one six-story mid-rise building, a five-story mid-rise building, four three-story structures with 31 townhouse units and a single-story community building; this section also includes a courtyard (or “village green”), a dog run and a playground area, with developed green space around all of the buildings and walkways and streets scaled to reflect a “village” atmosphere. The adjacent parcel, located on Kent Street, has one seven-story brick high-rise building.

TVAB is comprised of 184 one-bedroom flats, 82 two-bedroom flats and 10 three-bedroom flats, with 15 three-bedroom townhomes and 16 four-bedroom townhomes at the community. Each townhome unit has its own private patio or balcony. Of the community’s 307 units, 180 (59%) are set aside for households earning below 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI), 100 (33%) are assigned project-based vouchers and designated for households earning below 30% of AMI and 27 (9%) are rented at market rate. 116 units have age restrictions.

The management team maximizes financial performance at TVAB by minimizing vacancy, constantly monitoring performance metrics using RealPage and reducing operating expenses. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the team has brought contracted work in-house and reduced common area contracted expenses including landscaping and security patrols.

TVAB offers three tiers of unit finishes, with renovations performed based on vacancy: original, light, and hybrid. To date, 26 units (8.4% of total) have been renovated. “Original” units (281 total) feature wall-to-wall carpet in bedrooms and living areas, linoleum-tiled kitchens and bathrooms, linoleum counters, laminate cabinets and white appliances. “Light” units (16 total) feature vinyl plank flooring, faux-tile floors in bathrooms, gray paint with white trim, P-Lam counters, white shaker-style cabinets, faux-steel appliances, new bathroom fixtures, energy-efficient lighting and new blinds. “Hybrid” units (10 total) feature “moderate” finishes but have had walls moved to create more open floorplans.

TVAB offers a robust amenity package, including a redesigned community clubhouse, featuring a modern club room with fireplace, a chef’s kitchen, network café with coffee bar, state-of-the-art fitness center, a community greenhouse and new mail room with Hub by Amazon package center. Residents also have access to 12 laundry facilities, which were upgraded with high-efficiency machines in 2018, a covered 217-space parking garage, and an off-leash dog area. Additionally, a full-time Community Coordinator at TVAB plans coordinates numerous daily, weekly and monthly events and programs.
Annual resident surveys, conducted by the Connected Communities team, found 87% of residents are satisfied with their home.

WinnResidential property management staff collaborates with individuals and organizations in the Brookline community to offer four dozen programs to residents of The Village at Brookline. These resident services include health and wellness programs, such as nurse office hours, sitting yoga classes and a walking club; skill-building programs, such as Russian language classes, technology instruction and health insurance primers; and, social activities, such as picnics, poetry readings, knitting, movie nights and musical performances.

Three service programs exemplify the community’s innovative, resident-focused philosophy.

*The R3 initiative, developed in partnership with Harvard Medical School, provides coordinated services to vulnerable senior residents, allowing them to receive the Right Care in the Right Place at the Right Time. R3 creates a model of housing with supportive services to enable seniors to live independently as long as possible, while reducing healthcare cost and long-term care costs. More than 40 residents are enrolled as of August 2020 and participants share learnings with others in the community. Ambulance trips from The Village at Brookline to hospital emergency rooms have decreased by more than 20 percent in the three years since the R3 initiative began.

*Since 2016, the community has been served by the Fresh Truck program, which brings healthy, affordable food to residents in an open-air, mobile market on wheels. This service has been incredibly well-received by Village at Brookline residents and those who live nearby. Fresh Truck has been critically important during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering a stable resource to residents who face food insecurity, in a way that keeps staff, volunteers and shoppers safe.

*Knowing that frailty is a critical threat to the resident population, WinnResidential has partnered with the Boston University College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences to bring doctoral candidates in physical therapy to The Village at Brookline. Known as FLEXzone, the program empowers residents to build physical strength through progressive treatment programs, including manual therapies and exercise and movement classes.

In the most recent annual survey conducted by WinnResidential’s Connected Communities staff, 95% of the nearly 362 residents in The Village of Brookline report that they know their neighbors. The same percentage consider their physical and emotional health to be fair or excellent. Nine out of ten residents feel confident about their safety in the community.

The Village at Brookline’s management office is open six days a week. The property is staffed by a senior property manager, two assistant property managers, a senior community coordinator and a coordinator. The on-site maintenance team is led by a senior maintenance supervisor, who oversees four maintenance technicians and a groundskeeper. Local vendors provide three full-time cleaners and landscaping services.

The Village at Brookline is located just over the southwest border of the City of Boston in Brookline, MA. It is less than a mile from the Longwood Medical Center, home to the world-class teaching hospitals and an array of healthcare services. Public transportation stops are within walking distance and the surrounding neighborhoods feature several public parks and playgrounds, as well as restaurants and small businesses.

The Village at Brookline prides itself on being a vibrant and seamless part of the Brookline Village neighborhood, bringing an active senior presence to the larger diverse and transit-oriented community in which thousands of healthcare professionals, medical students and immigrant families reside.

The seven buildings that form the community have long been fixtures of the neighborhood, which is less than a mile from the hub of Boston’s world-class medical institutions. All residents participate in a weekly recycling programs and the properties are meticulously maintained in all seasons. A significant 2018 renovation insured the property’s curb appeal would continue to be viewed as an asset to the larger neighborhood.

The Village at Brookline is well known to local schools, city officials and civic groups, who are in frequent contact with staff to plan visits and activities among residents. Neighbors also engage with the residents when they are drawn to the property by various outdoor events, such as a weekly farmer’s market during the summer and fall months and the Fresh Truck program, which brings healthy, affordable food truck fare to the site.

Property management and maintenance staff have a strong, working relationship with the Brookline police, fire and health departments. On August 27, for example, Brookline police contacted to the property staff for their help in identifying a suspicious non-resident police had seen loitering near the property. The individual, who was wanted on an outstanding warrant, was arrested later the same day.

Services provided to residents at the Village of Brookline deliver a direct economic impact to dozens of local businesses and groups in the Boston-Brookline area, as well as the more than 100 individuals whom those organizations employ – from yoga instructors to food truck employees and local artists and musicians. The community also serves as a training ground for dozens of medical students who are enrolled at nearby teaching hospitals and who deliver physical therapy and other health and wellness programs to residents.

The Village at Brookline is a remarkably stable community. Some of the families who live at the property have been residents for more three decades; others are multi-generational households. The property’s occupancy rate at the end of August was 93.75%. This represents a slight decrease from the 2019 average of 98 percent, due in large part to the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the area’s rental market.

In the most recent annual survey of the property’s 362 residents by WinnResidential’s Connected Communities staff, 84 percent of residents reported feeling “good” or “great” about the safety of their neighborhood; 79 percent said they are registered to vote; and, 46 percent reported that they are “involved in the neighborhood.”

There were only four confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Village at Brookline in 2020, which offers evidence of the conscientious and unselfish nature of the residents and those who serve them.

The Village at Brookline is distinguished from its competitors by its dedicated management team, diverse offering of programs and services and the team’s ongoing maintenance and beautification program.

Residents benefit from a vast array of more than four dozen programs and services, along with a robust calendar of social engagements. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made in-person gathering impossible, especially for seniors, the team has hosted Zoom trivia games, provided arts and crafts supplies and instructions for projects and, most importantly, checked in on residents.

Property ownership has invested in significant improvements to compete with newer communities on the market. Exterior improvements included façade cleaning and repointing; a thoughtfully-designed landscaping plan; courtyard improvements; the creation of an off-leash dog area; an improved children’s playground; and the installation of monument and directional signage.

Common area renovations included more secure residential building entrances; refinished residential hallways and elevators; a redesigned community building; and improvements to the on-site leasing area and management office.

The community also began implementing a robust unit renovation program to modernize units and improve energy efficiency. The renovations, performed based on unit vacancy, saw the installation of modern cabinetry, plank flooring, stainless steel ENERGY STAR appliances, LED lighting fixtures and low-flow plumbing fixtures. To date, 26 of the community’s 307 units have been renovated.

In addition, the on-site team at The Village at Brookline benefits from the support of WinnResidential’s Operations Support Services (OSS) department. The OSS team partners with cutting edge industry programs for resident engagement, reputation management and customer service. These platforms do not replace hands-on engagement from on-site team members, rather provide additional tools.

The Village at Brookline utilizes ActiveBuilding® by RealPage. It provides all the services needed to lease and operate in a fast pace environment including online rent payments, package notifications, online lease renewals, service requests and amenity reservations. In addition, the portal gives residents a common place to engage as a community, enables community messaging, and includes a comprehensive package delivery and monitoring service. Residents can access the portal via desktop, tablet and mobile devices.

In today’s digital environment, an online reputation is the first thing that many prospective renters see. The Village at Brookline uses ReviewPush to monitor the community’s online reputation through social media channels and ratings and review sites. The program pulls all online reviews into an easy to use dashboard and creates an easy to use reporting and responding dashboard. This program is supported by a Winn policy and guidebook for best practices around response time, response method and response follow-up.

In 2020, The Village at Brookline began utilizing Kingsley Associates for integrated e-mail surveys measuring resident satisfaction at every turn of the customer journey. This reporting provides benchmarking index via the KingsleyIndexSM. From January 2020 to January 2021, The Village at Brookline experienced exponential increases in satisfaction scores for work order completions (+26.7%), quality of work (+25.7%) and notification of completed work (+20%).