The corner of India Street and John F. Fitzgerald Surface Road is one of the most prominent sites in Boston. So why is it a parking lot? Today, 55 India Street, faces the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway, Bostons second most popular urban living room after the Common that once had a hulking expressway, the old Central Artery, trucking through it, that is, before the Big Dig. The triangular plot is a short walk from South Station, Post Office Square, Custom House Tower, and other niceties which often end up on postcards. Today, 55 India Street is a parking lot. Notice the vans. (Google Maps)55 India Street is the last remaining morsel of untouched land next to the Kennedy Greenwaya relic of urban renewal and the Central Arterys disastrous consequences for Downtown Bostonbut not for much longer. There, a new midrise residential building designed by Hacin, a local office, has broken ground.The 12-story condominium takes up the last morsel of open land next to the Kennedy Greenway. Boston Residential Group is the project developer. David Hacin, president and creative director of Hacin, said the building will create a new face for downtown, for both residents and visitors, in the decades to come.The building has masonry details to make it fit within the Wharf District, and its historic architecture. (Courtesy Hacin)The milieu surrounding 55 India Street, the so-called Wharf District, is indeed a historic one. To match its context, Hacin conceived a building with a granite base, cast stone belt coursing, and brick masonry. These details were meant to provide a rich materiality consistent with the human-scaled experience of the tight historic streets, the office said. The building will deliever 76,000 square feet. Enmeshed within its 12-story envelope will be 29 two- and three-unit condos; five of which will be affordable artists lofts. The units will have generous balconies that look out onto the Kennedy Greenway. The ground floor will have a 4,250-square-foot restaurant which spills out onto the sidewalk, activating the corner.While the masonry details Hacin ideated speak to the neighborhoods Victorian charm, the way in which the floor plates are expressed, and the way in which these plates hug the corner, recalls Boston Five Cents Savings Bank, a nearby Brutalist building from 1972 by Gerhard Kallmann and Michael McKinnell, making the proposal for 55 India Street a blend of old and (sort of) new.Despite COVID-19 throwing a wrench in the project, Boston Residential Group has recently acquired funding for its completion.The Hacin-designed building should complete in 2027.