A company led by a former director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority has signed a contract with the current owners of the defunct Carney Hospital campus to come up with a plan to make over the 12.7-acre site.
Thomas N. O’Brien, CEO of the HYM Investment Group, has begun meeting with civic leaders in and around the neighborhood to formulate a future for the Dorchester Avenue property.
There is no fixed notion yet for what will replace the community hospital, which closed in August 2024 amid a bankruptcy crisis for its former operator, the Steward Health Care System. The holding company that now controls the Carney campus is Apollo Global Management.
O’Brien, who briefed The Reporter about the broad outlines of HYM’s involvement last week, said that the mix of uses on the site will likely include a health care delivery component of some kind along with housing and open space and indicated that the buildings now the site will likely be demolished.
He said that his company is now in listening mode and has no specific plan, architectural drawings, or operators of the property in mind.
O’Brien and one of his business partners – the longtime anti-violence activist and clergy leader Rev. Jeffrey Brown – discussed their emerging role with civic leaders in Lower Mills and Ashmont last week. Representatives from HYM are on the agenda to brief the Fields Corner Civic Association at their meeting this week.
O’Brien said that he and his team will be appearing at local civic association meetings for the next month or more to gather feedback ahead of finalizing any redevelopment proposal.
In a statement, O’Brien said: “We recognize the important role the Carney Hospital has played in the Dorchester community, and we see the future of this site as an opportunity to create something that is once again meaningful for the neighborhood. HYM was hired (in partnership with My City at Peace ‘MyCAP’) as the local co-development manager because of our experience navigating complex projects with strong community collaboration.
“Together, HYM and MyCAP welcome conversations with all who care about the site’s future and look forward to presenting a plan that includes a healthcare component and reflects the needs of Dorchester,” O’Brien said.
Last April, a task force set up by Gov. Healey and Mayor Wu delivered a 61-page report offering a series of recommendations about what could come next on the Carney campus, which includes an office building that closed in May 2025.
One conclusion in that report read: “Given the size of the hospital campus, the site could accommodate multiple uses, including direct health care services and uses that address longstanding unmet health-related social needs, as well as close gaps in social determinants of health.”
The authors also noted the condition of the now-shuttered facilities on the site, noting that the main hospital building was built in the early 1950s and though it “appeared to be in fairly good condition,” it was badly outdated and in need of major deferred capital improvements.
John FitzGerald, the Boston city councillor for District 3 who served on the Carney Working Group, said on Monday that O’Brien’s involvement is an important development.
“We are excited that there is now some movement towards the next iteration of the Carney Site, and we will be keeping a close eye on what the healthcare component consists of to make sure it meets the demands of the community,” Councillor FitzGerald told The Reporter. “We look forward to working with HYM and MyCAP as this process unfolds, but again just happy to take this next important step.”
The 61-year-old O’Brien is one of the region’s most prominent development leaders who served as the executive director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) under Mayor Thomas Menino in the mid-1990s. Since leaving public service, he and his company have focused on major redevelopment jobs in and around the city, including the demolition of the Government Center Garage known as Bulfinch Crossing and the construction of the 60-story One Congress Street office tower.
The firm is also the co-developer on Parcel 3 in Roxbury, which features Rev. Brown’s organization My City at Peace as its main partner. That project includes more than 300 units of housing along with life sciences space and a museum and policy center featuring the organization King Boston. It’s expected to create 1,600 construction jobs and spin out $336 million in contracts.
HYM Investment Group is also the owner of Suffolk Downs, the 161-acre former race track in East Boston that— once built out over the next two decades— is expected to include 70 mixed-use buildings. HYM also co-developed three buildings in the Boston Landing campus in Allston adjacent to the Boston Bruins’ Warrior Ice Arena.
O’Brien’s role in synthesizing information and planning next steps for the property is the most significant development in the Carney Hospital saga since the hospital’s abrupt closing in summer 2024. Mayor Wu, whose Boston Public Health Commission was the key driver of the working group that met for several months to create its own study, has repeatedly emphasized that she wants a health care-related service restored as part of any Carney redevelopment.
She has also been emphatic in saying that her office would likely move to block any effort that did not include uses that included “the provision of health care.”
As noted in a Reporter story last March, a development team assembled by the Apollo Management Group made a proposal to city officials to build a new Boston public school on the Carney property as part of a “Request for Proposals” circulated by the school district in 2024.
That proposal, according to sources close to the matter, was not considered viable by the Wu administration.
