Wrecking crews are tearing down the former Danforth Museum building in downtown Framingham this week, clearing a century-old structure from Union Avenue to make room for a $174 million regional justice center. Workers have been spraying down debris with water as the building comes apart, a dust-control method that has become a visible part of the demolition process.
The site at 123 Union Ave. has sat largely dormant since the museum departed years ago, but as MetroWest Daily News reports, the demolition now underway is the first visible step toward a new three-story courthouse complex. According to Correctional News, the planned 116,000-square-foot building will include seven new courtrooms once finished.
Louis Ramos, a Local 609 union labor steward, has been overseeing the dousing of demolition debris with water to keep dust and particulate matter contained as the structure falls — a routine but essential safeguard on a job site surrounded by downtown businesses and foot traffic.
A Building With Several Past Lives
The structure being demolished has worn more than one institutional hat over the decades. It was originally built as Framingham High School, though sources differ on the exact year: the Danforth Art Museum and Art School's own history page says the building dated to 1909, while Framingham Patch has reported it opened in 1907. The dossier does not resolve which year is accurate.
After its schoolhouse days, the building later became a junior high school before the Danforth Museum of Art and Art School moved in, operating there from 1975 until 2016, per the Danforth Art Museum and Art School. The museum closed the Union Avenue site in 2016 because of a failing heating system, and the building, by then more than a century old, sat vacant afterward, according to MetroWest Daily News.
The Danforth had already purchased the Jonathan Maynard Building in 2013 with plans to renovate and relocate there, and it reopened to the public in that new home in April 2019. Two years earlier, in 2018, the museum had become part of Framingham State University. The old Union Avenue building, meanwhile, was signed over by the city to the state's Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance in January 2025, clearing the way for its current fate.
What's Replacing It
The justice center rising on the site is designed to consolidate a sprawl of court functions under one roof. Per Banker & Tradesman, the project will bring together Middlesex County District Court, Housing Court, Juvenile Court, Family and Probate Court, and the Middlesex County District Attorney's office in a single downtown building. The same outlet reports the all-electric facility will feature ground-source heat pumps, rooftop solar panels and low-embodied-carbon construction materials.
Officials have also said elements salvaged from the demolished Danforth building will be repurposed as public art within the new complex, according to Correctional News. The project's roughly $174 million price tag has been cited by Access Framingham, while a state listing on mass.gov puts the estimated project cost at $174,305,643 across 116,000 risk gross square feet.
Timeline and Neighborhood Impact
Construction on the project was slated to begin in May, with hazardous-materials abatement and demolition work following between July and September, per earlier reporting from MetroWest Daily News. Excavation for the courthouse's foundation is expected to begin in November once the site is cleared, and concrete-pour days during the late-winter-to-early-spring 2027 phase of construction are expected to bring 20 to 25 concrete trucks through the area.
Officials have acknowledged the project won't be disruption-free. There will be noise, there will be traffic, there will be disruptions, a project manager told MetroWest Daily News earlier this year. Visitors to the finished justice center are expected to park in a new city-built garage on Franklin Street with more than 600 spaces, while about 20 spaces at the courthouse site itself will be reserved for court staff.
As for when the doors will actually open, sources diverge. MetroWest Daily News has reported the center is expected to be completed in spring 2029, Banker & Tradesman has described completion as scheduled for mid-2029, and Access Framingham has reported construction will finish by summer 2029. The dossier does not clarify whether these differing dates refer to separate project milestones. Officials have pointed to the site's downtown location, near MWRTA bus service and a Commuter Rail station, as a potential economic driver for Framingham once construction wraps, according to earlier MetroWest Daily News reporting.
