Allston-Brighton Residents Press Wu for Commitment to Rebuild Jackson Mann Community Center

Allston-Brighton residents are calling on city leaders to make an explicit commitment to rebuild the Jackson Mann Community Center after a long-awaited feasibility study on the site was released at the end of April.

The study — which was expected in February — was commissioned by the city of Boston last September to assess the feasibility of adding housing to a redeveloped Jackson Mann campus. It is the city’s fourth study on the future of the site.

The report included financial assessments for several possible uses of the Jackson Mann campus, including reopening a public elementary school, expanding city-funded community center programming, and adding housing units.

The campus formerly housed the Jackson Mann School, the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, and a community center operated by Boston Centers for Youth & Families. BCYF has continued to offer limited programming at the site as the building has fallen into disrepair.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 released a letter to the neighborhood Thursday inviting residents to a May 28 public meeting at the Jackson Mann to discuss the site’s future. In the letter, Wu wrote that, like many public facilities, the center has faced “deferred maintenance for many decades.”

“Unlike some of our other buildings though, the Jackson Mann will not be a simple rebuild,” Wu wrote, adding that the site was large enough to support multiple purposes.

The meeting comes one month after Wu privately discussed the study’s findings with a small group of residents and neighborhood organizers on April 29.

Wu wrote in the letter that the public meeting will discuss the study’s findings and solicit feedback on future uses of the site. Still, many residents have one demand — an explicit commitment from the city to rebuilding the community center.

The community center has an existing $10 million in the city’s capital budget, which Wu said was sufficient for the design phase of the project in the letter. But the project did not receive any additional capital funding in the budget for fiscal year 2027.

City Council President Elizabeth A. “Liz” Breadon, who represents Allston-Brighton, has pushed for a $65 million allocation in the capital plan for the design and construction of the center. And residents have been quick to call on Wu to dedicate resources to redevelop the site.

“What we really need is a verbal public commitment from the mayor that the city will build a community center,” said Jo-Ann Barbour, executive director of Charlesview Residences.

Nikhil Dasgupta — a member of the nonprofit Allston Brighton Health Collaborative who has organized in support of the Jackson Mann — said that the studies are an “important piece” to understanding the future of the site. But after nearly four years of city-commissioned studies, he said a public timeline backed by funding commitments from Wu would “mean a lot” to residents.

“That’s all important, but I don’t think doing that means we can’t also have a public timeline with the process,” he said.

“We’d take her at her word. To me at least, that would be a sign that this project is being taken seriously, that it’s being planned out in a meaningful way,” he added.

Breadon added that she hoped to see a commitment from the city that would allow the project to have a request for proposals and move into the design phase by the end of the year.

“I want to see a roadmap for how we move forward with this project, step by step, that will deliver a community center in the early 2030s,” Breadon said.

Brandon D. Bowser, a member of the Jackson Mann Community Council and a former teacher at the Jackson Mann K-8 School, said that planning for the interim would also be just as important as the long-term decisions.

“My priority is obviously to find a permanent home for the Jackson Man on site,” he said. “But also, if we’re talking about redeveloping the entire space, what does that look like in the interim period?”

Programming at the Jackson Mann is currently limited by roof, ventilation, and plumbing issues in the existing building. Wu wrote in her letter that the city is exploring the possibility of using other nearby municipal buildings to “sustain or expand” programming during the interim period.

Tony P. D’Isidoro, president of the Allston Civic Association, pointed to public buildings and schools in the neighborhood that are expected to close soon — like the Mary Lyon Pilot school, which will close in June — as sites that could house interim programming.

“Let them take a look at Allston-Brighton and all the public buildings and services required, and come back later this year and say, ‘Look, after we examined everything these are the two best uses that we feel are appropriate for the Jackson Man campus,’” he said.

D’Isidoro said he has encouraged other residents to give city leadership “maximum flexibility” to determine the future of the site, even if it means housing community programming elsewhere. The study found that it could be more feasible to develop housing adjacent to the site, rather than on existing upper floors.

“People are trying to back the administration into a corner on specific uses, which the administration is not ready to commit to,” he said.

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