We are passing the information below from the YMCA.

The YMCA of Greater Boston Charlestown YMCA has been devoted to serving the community of Charlestown for over a century and will continue to do so. You may remember that almost two years ago, we announced our intent to sell the Constitution Inn.

The YMCA marketed the property through a professional commercial real estate advisor and contacted over 5,000 parties. We cannot disclose the names of the organizations that showed interest, but we can assure you that the YMCA ran a process that reached out to many developers who had a variety of planned uses for the property.

Earlier this year we entered an Option Agreement for the sale of the Inn to the St. Francis House and the Planning Office for Urban Affairs (POUA) who plan to convert the Inn into “The Third on Helm,” an affordable permanent housing facility. Under the terms of the Agreement, the Charlestown YMCA will continue at its present location for at least the next five years.

The due diligence process for the waiver required the two organizations to execute a community engagement process and many of you and your neighbors participated and provided feedback. We heard you.

We are writing to inform you that St. Francis House and the Planning Office of Urban Affairs has withdrawn the Article 80 waiver request they submitted on October 5. St. Francis House and the Planning Office are still intending to move forward with the project under the Article 80 process and will be looking at other potential program changes to the project based on the feedback received from the community or that come from the Article 80 process.

We appreciate your membership and are grateful to you for participating in the community process to date. Please know that your voice has been heard and this is the first step in addressing all the concerns presented by the community.

The community meeting scheduled by the BPDA for 10/24 has been cancelled. We will continue to help St. Francis House and the Planning Office provide the public with updates. We encourage you to attend the public meetings and stay informed.

Information Link

Sincerely,

Irene Collins

Chief Communications Officer

[email protected]