Plans for an addiction recovery campus at the Shattuck Hospital in Roxbury three years in the making have officially been scrapped, after the team organizing the redevelopment said it could not find enough money to fund its 800-bed project.
While the hospital waits for a new developer, its inpatient services are continuing to be moved to the South End.
“The team has worked as planned to refine its proposal based on public feedback, funding availability and other considerations,” the state Executive Office of Health and Human services said in a joint statement with the state’s planning agency and the Boston Medical Center (BMC), which was tapped in 2023 to redevelop the site. “Despite the best efforts of all parties, we have determined that this proposal is no longer feasible.”
The state has aimed to redevelop the Shattuck campus since 2020. Its original Request for Proposals (RFPs) asked for around 100 units of permanent supportive housing and substance use treatment.
Shattuck’s existing medical and psychiatric services, in turn, would be permanently moved to the East Newton Pavilion in the South End, adjacent to the rest of the BMC campus.
Despite the redevelopment plan being scrapped, this relocation is ongoing and is expected to continue into 2027.
Andrew Brand, the head of the Worcester Square Area Neighborhood Association which covers the BMC campus in the south western corner of the South End, said that community groups had discussed that relocation with the state some years ago, under former Governor Charlie Baker’s administration.
“We came to an agreement that there would really only be two things moving into that pavilion, inpatient psychiatric treatment, potentially for addiction, and a more general hospital for the Department of Corrections,” Brand said. “We didn’t object to either of those. We were happy to help, because they were both inpatient. The state was fairly supportive of our request that all services remain inpatient services, especially given everything else that we have to deal with here.”
Brand said that at the time, the community had asked in return for Shattuck to be redeveloped into a treatment-focused addiction recovery campus, de-centralized from the drug crisis at the intersection of Mass. Ave and Melnea Cass Blvd.
“We need treatment, treatment, treatment,” he said. “Especially on the long-term side there. There’s enough detox-type treatment, but it’s the longer term. Many of the people, it’s not like you can detox them and they’re ready to live a healthy, sober life. They need additional services before they can do that.”
BMC was the only applicant to the state’s original RFP, with a proposal that called for 851 beds split between treatment, emergency and supportive housing. One person in the South End called that choice a “massive tactical error.”
“Their proposal would have created essentially a new neighborhood rather than a smaller replacement Shattuck campus with about the same footprint, plus a bit more supportive housing,” they said. “Rox[bury] went nuts and fought tooth and nail. They would have easily accepted a replacement for what is already there, or at least that’s what they said.” Now that the BMC’s Shattuck plan has been scrapped, though, it’ll be some time before there is any more progress towards a new recovery campus. The state plans to send out a new RFPs for the site soon, with listening sessions beginning in the next few months.
