Framingham Buys Marian High School Property For $3.35 Million

FRAMINGHAM, MA — The city has completed a $3.35 million purchase of the former Marian High School property with plans to open it as a community center.

Officials confirmed that the purchase from Invictus Forever Inc. was completed in September after the mayor teased the deal at a recent Coburnville-Tripoli Neighborhood Association meeting. Federal American Rescue Plan Act funds were used to complete the purchase, officials said.

The site will be developed as a city-wide community center that will feature a gym and 750-seat auditorium. Officials are also exploring whether a pool can be installed on the Union Avenue property.

There is a celebration scheduled for Thursday at the 273 Union Ave. site that the public is invited to, city officials announced.

Marian High, a private Catholic school founded in 1956 by Cardinal Richard Cushing, archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, closed at the end of the 2018 school year.

Officials cited struggles with meeting both enrollment and budget challenges. Enrollment had decreased from 304 in 2012 to 221 in 2018, when the school decided to close.

Were the school to have reopened in 2019, it would have featured only 16 incoming freshman with a total enrollment of 185, officials said at the time.