Haley House gets a home

An update from the ever-changing Dudley Square: one long-time neighborhood institution is taking steps to ensure it can stay around for the long haul. Haley House signed a lease in February to purchase the property that the café and direct

service organization has rented since 2006.

Bing Broderick, the executive director of Haley House, says the organization began exploring ownership as an option about five years ago when increased city and private investments in the area made it clear that the neighborhood would soon become pricier. He says the organization’s decision in 1966 to buy the South End property where it runs its soup kitchen proved to be a similarly wise choice. “If we didn’t own in the South End, we probably wouldn’t be there now,” he says.

Haley House bought the Dudley Square building and the land directly in front of it for $2 million from the Mayo Group, Broderick says.

The group is also branching out into the new Bolling Building, where it will open a gourmet pizza shop called Dudley Dough. The business will run on a profit-sharing model that is meant to provide greater returns to workers. Broderick says prices will be moderate in an effort to balance affordability for customers with a commitment to ensuring employees can earn a decent wage. Haley House is in the final stages of signing the lease for the pizza shop space with the city.

All in all, it’s an exciting time for the organization.

“We’re really excited about the expansion, the economic inclusion model [at the pizza shop] and the fact that we were able to buy,” says Broderick.

The organization has several events coming up in the near future as well. In celebration of its upcoming 50th anniversary, Haley House will soon run a fundraising campaign to help fund its recent purchase and other needed renovations.

Haley House will also host its third annual summer community luncheon on July 25. The event is a three-course, pay-what-you-can dinner that piggy-backs off a similar kind of event that the café hosts weekly on a smaller scale.

Of course, any changes in Dudley usually need to take the issue of parking into account — and this is no different. While the Haley House’s new purchase includes the land directly in front of it, the parcel of land next to it is currently owned by the city, which issued a request for proposals in October 2014.

RFPs are the formal way that the city requests developers to submit plans for a plot of land. The city plans to select a developer by April 29.