Plan for new Mattapan complex aims to foster connection among children and senior adults

Affordable child care and senior housing are coming to Mattapan in the very same building.

The Shattuck Child Care Center, an affordable child care center established in 1969, will have a new home on the ground floor of Brooke House, a future apartment complex for low-income older adults.

Brooke House is part of a larger plan to redevelop land into Olmsted Village, an intergenerational neighborhood offering affordable housing and services for foster children, families, young adults and senior adults.

The plan was approved by the state in December 2021, and the team hopes to begin construction on the project, including the $90 million Brooke House initiative, early next year.

Olmsted Village represents the final phase of a long-term project to develop the last 10 acres of the former Boston State Hospital site. The concept was proposed by housing developers 2Life Communities and Lena New Boston.

“This is the last chapter of the story, which we’re really excited to be a part of,” said Zoe Weinrobe, the chief of real estate for 2Life, a nonprofit affordable housing developer and operator for older adults based in Brighton.

Shattuck was an obvious partner to 2Life when it considered incorporating affordable child care into its proposal, according to Lizabeth Heyer, 2Life’s president. She said she sent her children to Shattuck and remembered the center’s struggle to find a permanent home after the state decommissioned its original location in 2012.

Shattuck has rented space inside First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain since 2017. Mary Grace Casey, the center's co-director, said she’s grateful for the relationship. But before Sunday services, she said, the center’s staff must cover up art projects and tuck away tables so the altar can slide back in front of the window.

Casey is excited for Shattuck to have its own space again — and even more thrilled to return to Mattapan, where the center was originally located on the campus of Lemuel Shattuck Hospital.

“There’s nothing about this that isn’t amazing, other than the fact that they haven’t dug the hole for it yet,” Casey said.

Both Shattuck and 2Life want their relationship to be more than landlord-tenant: as the building comes together, so will plans to foster a meaningful connection among the children, senior adults and wider Olmsted community.

“There’s something about children that really do bring out the best in people,” Casey said. “If you’re lonely, or if you live alone, sometimes hearing kids' voices and laughter is a nice thing to brighten up your day.”

Casey also hopes to work with young adults at Treehouse, another proposed project within the village that will offer housing to those who are at risk of aging out of the foster care system.

"If you’re lonely, or if you live alone, sometimes hearing kids' voices and laughter is a nice thing to brighten up your day."

Mary Grace Casey

She sees a future where a 20-year-old living in Treehouse is an aide for her classroom, or a former librarian living in Brooke House spends time teaching the children how to read.

There’s practical benefits, too: enrollment will increase at Shattuck from 46 seats to 55 seats in the larger space. Casey hopes that will give Shattuck the flexibility to turn its pre-K classroom into a Boston universal pre-K classroom, allowing families to feed into Boston Public Schools.

Other features are on deck: the new space will have everything she’s long dreamed of, such as sinks in the classroom –– thanks to a long conversation with Mass Design Group, the project’s architect.

Most importantly, the center’s co-director is looking forward to having more socioeconomic diversity in her classrooms at its future location. She believes Shattuck, which accepts vouchers from Child Care Choices of Boston, will be an attractive, affordable option for Mattapan families.

“I believe that our program is going to meet the needs more of that community,” she said. “And we always want families with vouchers to be able to find space.”

But outreach to families must wait on development, which is still in its final phases before construction.

Weinrobe, of 2Life, said the project is anxiously awaiting its last piece of funding to come in from the state, which will allow them to go out to bid and get into the ground in early 2026.

That timeline leaves Shattuck’s leaders hopeful to move in by spring of 2028. As one of the first providers to arrive to the new community, Casey was asked by the developers if nearby construction would be problematic.

She said she immediately shut down that concern.

“I was like, are you kidding? Preschoolers and construction?” she said. “That’s all they’re going to want to see! You’ve got a curriculum right in front of us.”

This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.