Old Lincoln Detox building in Mott Haven to reopen as a $44 million community hub in 2028

A Mott Haven building that has stood empty for nearly 15 years is getting a second life. South Bronx community leaders gathered Wednesday to break ground on the HEArts Center, a $44 million hub that residents will help run. The project reuses the former Lincoln Recovery Center, a 140th Street landmark of the neighborhood, and is scheduled to open in 2028.

Neighbors campaigned for more than a decade to win back the 26,805-square-foot site. Once finished, it will offer health services, education, job training, and arts and culture programs.

What the Mott Haven community center will include

Plans call for an auditorium with 120 seats, along with classrooms, meeting rooms and offices. Other rooms will be set aside for preventive and holistic health care, and workforce programs will train people for green jobs. A commercial kitchen with a cafeteria is under consideration as well; it could serve nutritious food and give residents cooking lessons.

The program took shape over years of planning by South Bronx Unite, whose organizers surveyed neighbors about their wishes. People asked for classes, jobs and room for the arts. Co-founder Mychal Johnson said the project shows what happens when communities build their own opportunities “not from the top down, but from the ground up.”

History of the Lincoln Detox site

The Works Progress Administration built the structure in 1931, and it first opened as the Mott Haven Medical Center. It later passed to Lincoln Hospital, the South Bronx’s sole hospital, which took it over to extend its presence in the area.

Poor care and years of neglect led activists, among them the Young Lords and the Black Panthers, to occupy Lincoln Hospital in 1970. One spark was the preventable death of Carmen Rodriguez following a botched abortion; staff had missed a heart condition noted on her record.

With heroin use at its peak, the occupiers opened the Lincoln Detox Center, which people also called the People’s Detox Center. Methadone was then the standard long-term treatment for opioid addiction, and the center offered acupuncture as an alternative. Police, acting on orders from then-Mayor Ed Koch, surrounded the building until the takeover ended. The new center aims to carry that tradition of holistic health into the future.