State officials confirmed today that a controversial plan to redevelop the Shattuck Hospital campus that was put on pause in 2023 has now been totally scrapped.
A development team led by Boston Medical Center won designation from the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) in June 2023 to transform the site into a recovery campus, but faced fierce resistance to the idea from residents and some elected officials. By year’s end, the BMC-led team announced that it would modify its plan to account for public feedback, but never publicly resisted the matter.
In a statement shared with The Reporter on Thursday, officials said that they worked to refine the proposal based on community feedback and funding availability, but couldn’t make it work.
“Despite the best efforts of all parties, we have determined that this proposal is no longer feasible,” read the joint statement from EOHHS, the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) and BMC. “We appreciate everyone who took the time to learn about the project and participate in thoughtful discussions about the needs of the community and goals for the site. EOHHS and DCAMM remain committed to the redevelopment of the Morton Street site and will be launching a series of public listening sessions to gather input to inform a new Request for Proposals focused on supportive housing.”
A new round of listening sessions will begin in early 2026, with details to be announced later, they said.
The Commonwealth is in process of relocating existing Shattuck Hospital medical and psychiatric services to the East Newton Pavilion in the South End by 2027.
BMC won preliminary designation in 2023 following a year-long “Request for Proposals” process with co-applicants Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation (JPNDC), and The Community Builders (TCB). The plan called for demolishing the existing Shattuck buildings and creating a Recovery Campus over two facilities with 326 treatment beds, 200 units of permanent supportive housing managed by Pine Street Inn, and another 205 units of family supportive housing championed by JPNDC. The plan also called for 120 emergency recovery beds with substance use and behavioral health treatment services.
The original RFP went out in 2022 after nearly three years of meetings with residents from all over the city, and only called for about 100 units of supportive housing with associated treatment services. The proposal’s large increase in units from the RFP was also a frequent sticking point.
The initial proposal drew strong opposition from some in Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and parts of Jamaica Plain who raised concerns about the proposed redevelopment’s density – more than 800 units of transitional housing for people in recovery.
Among the elected officials who opposed the BMC plan were Rep. Chris Worrell, Councillor Brian Worrell, and State Sen. Liz Miranda, who said in October 2023 that she was against clustering too many “supportive and transitional housing” units on the site.
The future of the Shattuck site is now uncertain.
State Sen. Nick Collins, who has worked closely on the redevelopment process since 2022, said he would like to see the existing buildings studied for a quick repurposing into a smaller recovery campus.
“I think it is time to take a look at the cost of rehabbing Shattuck Hospital into a state of the art treatment facility and supportive housing,” he said. “While a non-profit operator is needed to help run the programming, I don’t see a privately funded solution to getting such a facility online.”
Other plans floated by community leaders include senior housing with embedded health care uses and expanded green space.
Rep. Worrell called the decision a “major win for the community and shows the power we possess when we come together and make our voices heard.”
“Our advocacy must not waiver as we determine the future of this site and protect the urban jewel that is Franklin Park.”
No everyone agrees.
Dorchester’s Shameeka Moreno, a board member for the Boston Tenants Coalition and a member of the grass-roots Housing & Health on Morton Street coalition, said the failure of the BMC plan was a “disservice to the community.” She noted there were 10 or more community groups from the surrounding neighborhoods in full support of the plan.
“If they don’t build it to the amount of apartments we would like I would like it to still be in the same area and if they would add elderly housing – fine – but not taking away the focal point which is recover and stabilization of families,” she said. “With family supportive housing, these are people in need at the highest level. We are a sanctuary state, so our shelters are full addressing that. This was one stop shopping for services with a day care adjacent, any religious services in walking distance and plenty of green space. That’s what made it a big positive for the community.”
Moreno also lamented a great deal of “misinformation” from abutters and other interests that didn’t want a recovery campus in their backyard. She said the crux of the plan, supportive housing, was about families and children – particularly people getting sober and trying to reunite with children and loved ones.
“This was about children and reunification – stabilizing people,” she said. “No one wants to see someone who can’t have their children back and the children are in Middleton, and they are all the way in Dorchester or Mattapan and can’t reunify only because of a lack of housing stability…Everyone was thinking we were going to bus people in from Mass and Cass and that wasn’t the case.”
