By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

Hopes for the construction of a new, multi-use community center on Bowdoin Street have been revived this month by an emerging partnership between three longtime Dorchester social service agencies. If the proposal takes flight, the center could transform a vacant, glass-strewn corner of Bowdoin Street into a multi-generational hub of neighborhood activity, featuring a gymnasium and fitness center, after-school classrooms and adult-learning space.

Details of the partnership emerged at a community meeting held last Thursday at the Bowdoin Street Health Center, where city officials facilitated a conversation between the proponents and local residents. The development team is headed by Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which owns one key parcel at Bowdoin and Topliff streets and has access to another large parcel of city-owned land next door. In recent months, Dorchester Bay EDC has quietly teamed up with Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses (Federated) and Bird Street Community Center (Bird Street) to form a new alliance aimed at building the center, a venture that is likely to cost in excess of $13 million.

Under a present plan, the three parties, all separately controlled non-profit organizations, would form a new entity for the purpose of building and managing the center. The construction of the building would be led by Dorchester Bay EDC, a community development corporation with a track record of redeveloping residential and commercial properties in the neighborhood. Once built, programming at the center would then be managed by Federated &endash; which currently operates the Log School on Bowdoin Street &endash; and Bird Street, which currently operates a community center on Columbia Road in Uphams Corner.

While several key milestones lie ahead for the development team, last week's meeting generated new excitement about the project, which has existed in concept since September 2003, when Dorchester Bay EDC was awarded control of a key city-owned parcel at 191 Bowdoin Street. Dorchester Bay EDC submitted a proposal to the city at that time that called for the construction of a community center, to feature expanded programming by Federated, with room for commercial space. However, plans to construct the building were stalled, according to Dorchester Bay and Federated officials, by fundraising difficulties. Dorchester Bay's window to redevelop the site is scheduled to lapse at the end of this month, unless the city's Public Facilities Commission votes to extend their designation.

Barbara Salfity, who manages the real estate division for the city's Department of Neighborhood Development, said this week that community feedback from last week's meeting was positive. Salfity indicated that Dorchester Bay's designation could be extended.

"It's under advisement," Salfity said this Tuesday. "If we determine that it's in the best interest of the project, it could be (extended)."

Salfity said that a decision would likely be made in the next two weeks.

The prospect of adding Bird Street to the partnership, a maneuver that must still be formalized by a vote of Bird Street's board of directors, has brought new vitality to the plan. In particular, it is hoped that Bird Street can help bring a new community of funders to the table to help finance the proposed building. Most importantly, Bird Street hopes to succeed in attracting grant money from the Robert H., White Foundation, a city-affiliated funding source that had committed $3.5 million to an earlier Bird Street plan to build a facility- known as the Uphams-Dudley center- on Dudley Street. Bird Street abandoned those plans last fall, after Salvation Army announced their intentions to build a massive community center on Dudley Street.

Bird Street's executive director, Andrea Kaiser, said this week that she was working with Dorchester Bay to submit a new application to the White fund to help finance the Bowdoin Street project. The White fund, Kaiser said, is a critical piece of the funding puzzle, since its monies are needed to construct the gymnasium and fitness building envisioned under the present Bowdoin plan. As mandated by the White fund's specifications, the gym building would be owned by the city of Boston, but managed by Bird Street. The staff and administrators of Bird Street would also operate programs for school-age children, similar to the programs they now stage on Columbia Road. "

"There are 9,000 kids (under 19) in that neighborhood," Kaiser told the Reporter this week, adding that 300 current members of Bird Street's existing center are drawn from the Bowdoin Street area. "I know there are smaller programs there now, but nothing on the scale of what we're doing. What we're trying to do now is remove barriers to learning."

"We want to be able to serve that community and also to bring the kids (to Uphams Corner) and vice versa. We do not intend to move out of Bird Street. This is the flagship," Kaiser says.

News of Bird Street's interest in joining the Bowdoin Street effort has been met with enthusiasm in Bowdoin-Geneva, where Bird Street's reputation is known and respected and where, until recently, some had feared that the project had been stuck in neutral.

"I was pleased to hear that Bird Street would be running all the athletic and fitness pieces," says Davida Andelman, who works and lives near the proposed location of the center. Andelman said that Federated's Log School- which runs childcare, English classes and high school equivalency programs from a nearby Bowdoin Street building- "do those very well."

"There is a need for more space to do them in. The more space they have, the more people can get those kinds of services," Andelman said.

John Barros, whose restaurant Cesaria's opened on Bowdoin Street in 2003, says a community center is sorely needed along the Bowdoin corridor.

"I absolutely support it," Barros said this week. "Bird Street can bring along dollars that they raised and will need to muster the political will to move that money to Bowdoin."

Barros, who is also executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), which is playing a key role in bringing the Salvation Army to that section of the neighborhood, said that DSNI would support the reallocation of Bird Street's funding from Dudley to Bowdoin.

"We believe the folks on Bowdoin Street really should have additional capacity. There's not a lot of options when you think about it," Barros said.

Jeanne DuBois, executive director of Dorchester Bay EDC, says the three partner agencies are encouraged by the show of support they have encountered from residents who have been briefed on the project.

"If the neighborhood really wants it to happen, I think the city will be inclined to go with that," DuBois said. "I really believe in community centers. Every neighborhood needs a clubhouse and a living room, which we see as the business district."

DuBois said that $100,000 has already been spent by Dorchester Bay EDC on the design of the building, which she said would be "a state-of-the-art green building." DuBois said that by incorporating alternative energy technologies including solar power cells into the building's plans, the project has been awarded a $200,000 grant from an environmental foundation.

In addition, 2,000-sq. ft of the proposed building would be set aside for commercial use to house a retail store or bank, DuBois said.

"We are applying the theory of main streets, which is you don't lock up district with too many non-profits. You need some economic anchors and Bowdoin-Geneva doesn't have as many as other districts," she said.

DuBois said that if the proposal moves forward, a neighborhood building committee would be created to allow for resident input and monitoring of the new building.

Mark Hinderlie, the executive director of Federated, said Tuesday that his organization intends to sell the Log School property at 222 Bowdoin Street as part of the financial plan for the community center. Hinderlie said that Log School's programs would then be housed in the new center.

Federated has "made a huge amount of improvement" in the last year, according to Hinderlie, who took charge of the agency in 2002. Debts owed to other Dorchester non-profits that nearly drowned the umbrella social service agency in years past are "almost completely" retired, Hinderlie said this week. The addition of Bird Street to the Bowdoin center team, Hinderlie said, was another dose of good news.

"We're very excited about the partnership. We think it will allow us to bring enough new resources to the table that we can move forward," Hinderlie said. "We do have significant foundation proposals out there now and the interest is very high."

According to Andelman, the momentum shift in recent days has been palpable.

"With Andrea (Kaiser) and Bird Street involved, there's definitely more confidence that this can happen," Andelman said. "But the key part is the community: To convince people this is doable and to really engage the community in the process from now on."