BOSTON – Shawmut broke ground on a 17,000-square-foot expansion and 8,000-square-foot renovation of Community Servings’ new “Food Campus” at the nonprofit’s headquarters in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
In partnership with Jacobs Engineering Group and QPD, the $21 million project will enable the food and nutrition organization to triple meal production to serve more critically ill neighbors in need and expand to additional communities. Shawmut will reconstruct approximately 8,000-square-feet of the existing, occupied 13,400-square-foot building to provide additional classrooms, a kitchen expansion, and storage. The Shawmut team will also grow the facility with a three-story 17,000-square-foot expansion that will include a commercial kitchen, offices, and gathering spaces to enable double the capacity for daily volunteers and job training graduates. The reconfigured site will provide parking, small herb gardens, fencing, and complementary landscaping.
“It is especially meaningful for our team to partner with Community Servings, an organization that is making an immeasurable difference in so many lives throughout and beyond the New England region,” said Kevin Sullivan, vice president at Shawmut Design and Construction. “We’re honored to play an integral role in a project that enhances volunteerism within our community and will ultimately maintain the health and dignity of countless individuals.”
Set for completion in the fall of 2019, the new 31,000-square-foot Community Servings campus will include universally accessible and family friendly volunteer kitchens for individuals of all abilities; a learning kitchen for on-site nutrition education and hands-on instruction for training programs; a new baking kitchen that produces customized desserts for special diet clients; and a Food & Health Policy Center focused on research and replicating the health care cost-saving model nationally.