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In a letter to Allston-Brighton residents, Mayor Michelle Wu announced a meeting on May 28 at the Jackson Mann Community Center (40 Armington St) auditorium to discuss the next steps for the community center.
According to the City of Boston website, the meeting, which will be held at 6 P.M., will discuss “future of the site, and project timeline updates” as well as the results of a financial feasibility study released late April.
The study evaluated the costs of different models for the Jackson Mann. The findings estimate that the cost of a new Boston Centers for Youth and Families (BCYF) community center to be up to $104 million. In addition to a new BYCF community center, the report also explored options for a pre-K-6 school and a mixture of market-rate and affordable housing.
The letter comes at a time when community advocates have pressured Mayor Wu and the city to put out a publicly-stated timeline and commit more money for rebuilding the Jackson Mann. In 2019, the city announced that the Jackson Mann will be demolished and rebuilt due to structural issues, and the current community center has been operating under limited funding and capacity since 2024.
In her letter, the mayor acknowledged the importance of the Jackson Mann, calling it a “cornerstone of the community for more than 50 years.”
But at the same time, Wu seemed to double down on the current $10 million allocation, writing that the City believed that this amount intended for a programming and design study “is sufficient to advance the design of the building.”
She mentioned that the design for the project typically reflects 10% of the total project budget. Though she did not mention a total amount in her letter, this indicates that the total project budget is around $100 million — in line with cost estimates of a community center without a school according to the financial feasibility study.
She also characterizes the site as “not a simple rebuild,” owing to its many possible uses including a school, community center and housing.
“Given BPS [Boston Public Schools] enrollment trends in the neighborhood, we must closely examine whether or not a new school is needed in this location. Many residents have also advocated for housing to be added onsite to address critical housing affordability challenges in the community,” the mayor wrote.
These sentiments reflect what the mayor had told a small group of residents in an invite-only meeting a month earlier. At that time, Wu said that the city could not commit more money to a community center in the current capital budget because it had not made a decision surrounding its uses (including whether BPS will retain its ownership for a pre-K-6 school or transfer its ownership to the city’s Public Facilities department).
Based on the meeting, residents believe that the city will make a final decision about the Jackson Mann’s uses by the end of this year. However, in her letter, Wu wrote that the city will commit more money once it determines the uses, finalizes a design, and estimates a cost though she did not mention an explicit timeline.
The city also said that the May 28 meeting will be an opportunity for residents to provide feedback on interim programming. Residents had previously said that the previous year’s operating budget of $25,000 was not sufficient to cover programming.
Allston-Brighton City Councilor Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Breadon said that she found the letter “a little disappointing.”
“One of the issues with the letter is that it doesn’t give a clear timeline. It’s very vague,” she said. Breadon said that the city did not reach out to her prior to the letter’s release.
She hopes that a timeline would come out of the public meeting on May 28.
“What I would like to see is a timeline that we will move forward: the control of the building will be transferred to Public Facilities, and then in the next financial year, we will work on a RFP [request for proposal]; in the next financial year, we’ll move toward design,” Breadon said. “I want to see a timeline.” ■
