Bellforge Arts Center · Medfield, Massachusetts
Two buildings,
and what they
will hold.
Jean R. Mineo is Executive Director of Bellforge Arts Center, restoring two derelict buildings at the former Medfield State Hospital into a performing arts and education campus. Ground was broken on 1 June 2026. The doors open in autumn 2027.
Ground broken
1 June 2026, after twelve years of assembling the site, the lease and the money.
Opening autumn 2027
A 300 seat venue, seventeen teaching rooms and a public gallery.
$30M project
On a 128 acre campus the Town of Medfield bought from the Commonwealth in 2014.
The site
A hospital that closed,
and a town that bought it.
Medfield State Hospital opened in 1896 and held some 2,300 people at its peak. Two hundred remained when it closed in 2003. The campus is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2014 the Town of Medfield bought 128 acres from the Commonwealth for $3.1 million and approved a master plan in 2019.
The project
A chapel that seats 300,
and seventeen rooms to learn in.
Two derelict buildings and a new structure joining them. The rings below are each building’s share of the 31,200 square feet under restoration.
18,000
Lee Chapel · sq ft
8,000
The Infirmary · sq ft
5,200
Glass connector · sq ft
18,000 sq ft
Lee Chapel.
A 300 seat flexible venue for music, theatre, dance, lectures, film and readings, with rehearsal space and a catering kitchen.
Drawn to actual relative footprints.
Seventeen rooms, three storeys.
8,000 sq ft
The Infirmary.
Three storeys holding classrooms, lesson studios, art studios and dance rooms, for after school programmes, summer camps and daytime adult classes. Beyond the buildings, a historic agricultural field first cultivated in the 1890s returns to food production and teaching.
Where it stands
Under construction,
not under discussion.
$30M
Total project cost
$25M
Capital campaign target
$20.7M
Raised so far
83 per cent of target · $4.3M remaining
10,000+
Came to the first outdoor concert season, before a single building was finished
Recognition
In her own words,
and the Commonwealth’s.
“Jean embodies all the best qualities of our local cultural council volunteers: a passion for the arts, civic spirit, and a willingness to work hard to make her community a better place.”
Anita WalkerExecutive Director, Massachusetts Cultural Council
Leadership Circle Award, presented 7 May 2015
“Our mission has always been to make this site, and this region, a place where the arts belong to everyone.”
Jean R. MineoAt the groundbreaking, 1 June 2026
“We’re putting a stake in the ground for culture. If you’re buying in, you’re buying into all of it.”
Jean R. MineoThe Boston Globe, 2023
Director, Boston Sculptors Gallery
Ten years running the gallery, alongside seven permanent public art installations in Boston and beyond.
Chaired the Cultural Council, founded Art in Public Places
Her project Vision and Voices was one of four national winners in the CommunityMatters Successful Communities Contest.
Cultural Alliance of Medfield
Established as a 501(c)(3), it took a 99 year lease on two hospital buildings and became Bellforge Arts Center.
Executive Director, Bellforge Arts Center
Fundraising, programming, construction coordination, historic preservation and partnerships. More than half of Bellforge’s participating performers are BIPOC artists.
Contact
Bellforge Arts Center.
Office
258 Main Street, Unit 1
Medfield, Massachusetts 02052
The site
45 Hospital Road
Medfield, Massachusetts