Harvard Street Board members Ed Gaskin, Jheanell Daye, Paula Josephs, Bonnie Brathwaite, and Brian Shelly joined CEO Charley Murphy in shoveling the first dirt at the ground-breaking on Thursday. Seth Daniel photos
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A ceremony was held last Thursday (Oct. 29) to break ground at the future site of a 49,000-square-foot, three-story building on Old Road that will house operations of the existing Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center on Blue Hill Avenue.
“This is a huge day for Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center, our neighbors, the patients, and our staff – all of whom deserve this new facility,” said health center CEO Charley Murphy. “The board asked me to pursue a new building 12 years ago, and I left as CEO and then came back again as CEO and finally we have reached that day.”
The existing building on Blue Hill Avenue is “lovely,” Murphy said, “but it’s old and leaks and is beyond its time…It’s an important milestone today. We see a neighborhood that suffers from longstanding disparities in health access. In Boston, that hurts to have such disparities in a city known for its hospitals and universities.
“This is Harvard Street’s effort to make sure that beacon shows for everyone that walks through these doors,” he noted.
Harvard Street began operations in 1968 and landed in its current building across from Franklin Park Zoo seven years later. The facility has been offering primary care, women’s and behavioral health services, dental, cancer screening, podiatry, a pharmacy, and other services since then, but has outgrown the space.
After 12 years of starts and stops, the updating project gained legs during the pandemic and just after upon Murphy’s return for his second stint at leading the organization. After securing the land on Old Road, the center worked with The Community Builders (TCB) of Jamaica Plain to consider a health center as Phase 1 and a combination of other health center functions with more than 100 units of affordable housing in new construction on the Blue Hill Avenue properties as Phase 2.
Board Chair Bonnie Brathwaite said the new facility will help Harvard Street enhance patient experience and welcome many new patients. “This has been a long time coming and it is amazing for the employees, but more importantly it is great news for the patients,” she said. “This new center delivers on making sure the folks we care for get the care they deserve.”
Added Councillor Brian Worrell, who lives nearby, “This doubles their clinical space and allows them to serve thousands more patients each year. This is a big day for Blue Hill Avenue, and this is a great example of investing in institutions that have been working for decades and giving them the tools to do more.”
Councillor Brian Worrell, board member Ed Gaskin, and Michael Curry, president of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers.
Murphy said there was a time about a year ago when he was convinced that the project might not move forward, but eventually the center plugged critical gaps in financing using New Market Tax Credits via TCB, MassDevelopment, and South Shore Bank, who purchased some $20 million in tax exempt bonds to bring the project to construction.
“It’s a critical part of this job,” said Murphy.
Also critical on the money side: A capital campaign that saw donations from organizations like Boston Medical Center and individuals like the late Richard Slifka, the Global Petroleum founder who grew up in the center’s neighborhood.
A solemn moment in the ground-breaking occurred when a moment of silence was held for the late, long-time board member Eileen Kenner, who passed away earlier this year.
Commodore Construction is handling the building of the center and has already begun pre-construction activities on the site – blocking off part of Old Road as things ramp up.
“The responsibility is now ours to turn the vision here into a functioning health center building and we look forward to getting started,” said Commodore’s Dan Hudd.
The construction process is expected to last between 18 and 24 months.
Copyright © 2026 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. This content may not be re-published or re-used without written permission.
