Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced plans to rebuild the city's Long Island Bridge and build a facility to combat homelessness, addiction, and mental health.

The bridge was demolished in 2014 after it was determined to be structurally unsafe, which cut off access to the addiction recovery facility that once operated there.

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"We are now taking this as a sign that the city will move ahead with the reconstruction of the Long Island Bridge," Wu, a Democrat, said at a Thursday press briefing. "We can't waste any time, any more time, on this project. This is about creating an island of opportunity that will connect people to the lives and community they deserve."

While Boston has a lower rate of homelessness compared to many other major United States cities, the issue there is significant, fielding a 24.7% increase from 2020, according to the city's annual homelessness census. However, from 2021 to 2022, the number did drop 2.4%, totaling 1,545 people.

Opioid overdose is also a major issue for the city, which Public Health Commissioner Dr. Bisola Ojikutu said, "overwhelms our system of care." The overdose death rate in Boston has spiked 36% since 2019.

The plans for reopening the facility are larger than the operation that existed there prior to 2014. Wu described it as a 35-acre "regional public health campus" that would have the capacity to serve hundreds of people, including long-term care, mental health treatment, housing assistance, job training, and addiction recovery.

Boston has allocated $38 million to fix existing buildings and another $81 million for rebuilding the bridge.

"The new Long Island campus will be a hub for innovation and will provide an integrated continuum of care that I believe, and I think we all believe, will strengthen our system to promote the health and well-being of the people who inhabit the campus," Ojikutu said, adding that the current system is only set up for short-term care and the recovery process is not coordinated.

Officials in the Quincy suburb of Boston are not pleased with the new plan, because bridge access would need to go through its Squantum neighborhood.

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, who left the Democratic Party in 2018, said his office is drafting an appeal to permits for the plans, which will cite traffic and environmental concerns.

"I'm gonna do everything in my power to put roadblocks and obstacles in the way of Boston building that bridge," Koch said. "I'm OK with what they want to do with the island, I find it offensive that the only route they choose is by car."

However, past attempts at challenges from Quincy have not proven to be successful, according to Wu infrastructure adviser Chris Osgood.

"In every single case, the city has been successful in those appeals," Osgood said. "We have similar confidence that if there is an appeal in this case, we would, in the end, still be successful in receiving a Chapter 91 license for the bridge project."

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Osgood was referencing the Massachusetts government's approval of a license to build the bridge earlier this week, moving the project one step closer to full approval. The final two steps are a review from the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and a permit from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Boston believes the permits will be secured by the end of the year to start an expected four-year-long process to reopen the 3,300-foot bridge.