Mass General held a Community Forum meeting virtually on Tuesday, June 21, for the various stakeholders involved in the hospital’s planned expansion of its Cambridge Street campus.
Nick Haney, public coordination and initiatives director for MGH, said the idea behind the ongoing Community Forum meetings is “to create a community dialogue or a place for community conversation,” as well as to provide a place where stakeholders can share news on what their respective groups are currently working on, specifically in regard to the project.
Moreover, MGH has launched a website (https://www.massgeneral.org/news/cambridge-street-project) to apprise the public of news on the “logistics plan” for the project, which Haney said would be updated on at least a bi-weekly basis.
Jersey barriers are now set up around the project site, he said, with the goal of taking cars off North Anderson Street.
Additionally, the project team now hopes to relocate the existing bike-storage facility to allow for the extension of the fence along Parkman Street, added Haney.
In the coming weeks, staging will also be erected around the 1884 Winchell Elementary School (a.k.a. Ruth Sleeper Hall), he said.
Haney said MGH expects to finalize its Memorandum of Agreement related to project mitigation with the Massachusetts Historic Commission in the next two to four weeks.
Bricks won’t begin to be salvaged from the Winchell building until after the signing of the MOA, said Haney, although the project team is currently in the process of removing some items that will be donated to the West End Museum.
By mid-July, the project team hopes to relocate Parkman Street, which will be a two-way street, through the middle of the site, added Haney, and they will also build a bridge at street level above where the tunnel would be located.
Then by mid-November, Parkman Street will be returned to its current traffic configuration to allow for excavation beneath the bridge, he said.
Regarding Mousey Park, signage went up a month before fencing was installed around its perimeter to inform people who frequent the park of the change, said Haney, along with additional outreach.
The next Community Forum is tentatively set for early January, said Haney, and it would likely be a hybrid meeting held at MGH’s Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation on North Grove Street, which will be advertised on the new project website.