Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is seeking state funding to rebuild Madison Park High in Roxbury, as its current facility is outdated and not conducive to modern technology. The cost could reach $750 million, with state-city shared costs.
Madison Park Technical Vocational High School photo
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Feb. 11 that her administration will seek state approval and funding to help build a new or heavily renovated facility for the aging Madison Park Technical Vocational High School campus in Roxbury.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Feb. 11, 2025, that her administration will seek state approval and funding to help build a new or heavily renovated facility for the aging Madison Park Technical Vocational High School campus in Roxbury.
In a letter to city councilors the day before, Wu requested council approval to begin the application process with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) before a filing deadline in April.
There is no guarantee that the state authority will approve the city's funding request, the Dorchester Reporter noted, although Boston Public Schools (BPS) has seen success in recent grant cycles.
Last year, the system's application for state funding to build a new campus for Dorchester's Ruth Batson Academy was the latest BPS project to earn an invite to the process. Prior to that, a new facility to house the merged Shaw-Taylor School on the Dorchester-Mattapan line gained an invitation in 2023.
The full cost of rebuilding Madison Park is not yet known, but preliminary estimates range as high as $750 million, according to city sources. The campus on Malcolm X Boulevard near Roxbury Crossing was built in the 1960s and has become increasingly outdated, in part, because the building's poured concrete construction is not conducive to modern technology, such as wi-fi, the Reporter noted.
"This campus has been a beacon for decades, but over time, the facilities haven't gotten the reinvestment that's needed to make sure it's the most modern and updated platform for our students and for our industries to be plugged [into]," Wu said after she toured the property Feb. 11.
"We've been working for over a year now with community members to have a real visioning process for what a modern, updated, beautiful Madison Park campus should be," she added, "and we're taking the first steps in decades to make that a reality by putting forth some of the designs and feedback and then entering a process to apply for funding from the state as well that would allow us to move this project forward."
An invitation into the MSBA process is only a first step, according to the Reporter, and does not generate a fixed budget or cost, nor does it ensure that it will advance to construction. A successful MSBA project usually includes shared costs between the state and city.
In her remarks, Wu explained that the application to the MSBA would focus strictly on the Madison Park campus and not the John D. O'Bryant School of Math & Science campus next door.
"We know that there are some spaces that are shared, and so as those spaces [are] updated, the O'Bryant community would also benefit from [being] fully modernized, whether it's the gym or other shared locations in the buildings that provide spaces for both," she said. "But this project will be focused on Madison."
Request for State Funding Has April 11, 2025 Deadline
James E. Rooney, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, agreed with the mayor's approach to seek state support through the MSBA to provide such a facility.
"Career vocational/technical education is an essential piece of the city's workforce development strategy and provides a critical pathway to economic opportunity for its residents," he said in a statement. "This strategy enhances [Boston's] ability to secure the necessary resources for a high quality … education and a curriculum to realize students' full potential."
At-large Boston City Councilor Henry Santana, a close Wu ally and chair of the council's education committee, called the application a "critical step toward ensuring the school has the modern facilities needed for hands-on, career-focused education."
The deadline for submitting "statements of interest" to the MSBA is April 11, 2025, the Dorchester news source noted. Typically, the agency evaluates submissions and takes site visits throughout the year and invitations are announced to successful applicants at the agency's December meeting.
"We are going to work very hard to make the case here for Madison Park," Wu said. "We've had a really strong partnership with the MSBA and funding for several schools that are in progress in Boston. So, we've been able to accelerate school construction renovation [to] where there are more projects now in the pipeline and underway than in the last 40 years."
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