Boston Officials Put Forward Proposal for Community Center, Housing on Jackson Mann Community Center Site

The city of Boston introduced a draft proposal to construct a new community center and housing for the redevelopment of the Jackson Mann Community Center at a Tuesday resident meeting.

Under the proposal, a new community center would be constructed on the front of the lot where the now-vacant Jackson Mann sits, and the back part of the lot would be developed into housing. If the plan is approved, the design and RFD phase of the project would start in January 2027, with construction not slated to break ground until 2030 at the earliest.

Residents can submit public comment over the next three weeks and city planning officials said all of the information would be brought to the Mayor Michelle Wu ’07’s office for a final decision to be made.

The proposal aligns with a plan highly favored by residents, according to the city’s most recent survey. The city does not plan to conduct any further surveys about potential uses for the site.

The proposal leaves behind the idea to rebuild a school at the site, paving the way for Boston Public Schools to transfer ownership to the Boston Centers for Youth and Families for construction of the community center and housing. The Jackson Mann site previously housed the Jackson Mann School and the Horace Mann School for the Deaf.

Since the schools shut down in 2022 and 2023, the community center has continued to operate programming out of the site — including a children’s basketball league run by the Fire Department, knitting classes, and afterschool programs.

City officials explained that the city did not see the need for a new school due to declining enrollment in the BPS system. Between 2015 to 2025, elementary enrollment among Allston-Brighton residents decreased 5.5 percent, while secondary enrollment declined by 4.7 percent. Forty-four percent of seats in Allston-Brighton were unfilled during the 2025-2026 school year.

As a result, a number of schools were closed during the 2025-26 school year, including the Lyon Upper school in June, which cut 307 seats at the secondary level.

Residents challenged the narrative around declining enrollment in public schools, citing instead poor facilities and a lack of investment pushing parents to send their children elsewhere or move out to the suburbs.

“Our kids are being underserved big time in this community, and the schools are failing in this community,” said Tony P. D’Isidoro, president of the Allston Civic Association.

D’Isidoro noted how building a new school in the neighborhood could bring in more families into the BPS system, citing “tons and tons of evidence that building new schools attracts students and families big time.”

“Kids excel where they haven’t excelled before because they’re in a world-class facility with world-class teachers,” D’Isidoro said.

Morgan S. Berns, a resident of Allston-Brighton of thirty years whose child attends Gardner Pilot Academy in Allston, highlighted the lack of complete facilities at elementary schools in the neighborhood.

“Schools are either missing a gymnasium, they’re missing a cafeteria, they’re missing an auditorium. None of the current facilities are complete in and of themselves,” he said.

Earlier this year, roof leaks and water damage led to parts of the ceiling in a second-grade classroom crumbling in the GPA. Despite being first reported in January, BPS did not address the leaks until March.

As a result, residents questioned whether BPS would make a serious commitment to improving existing school facilities, and asked what specific steps the city would take to support public education in the neighborhood if a school is ultimately not built on the Jackson Mann site.

But regardless of what is built on the site, residents at the Tuesday meeting overwhelmingly said they wanted the city to move quickly on starting construction on the site.

“The thing that we are all on consensus is we want to see the community center move forward, and housing or schools, I think that’s a separate conversation,” Rahul Ramesh, an Allston-Brighton resident, said.

—Staff writer Thamini Vijeyasingam can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @vijeyasingam.

—Staff writer Kevin Zhong can be reached at [email protected].