A controversial plan to move the highly rated O’Bryant School to West Roxbury has been killed following community blowback, marking a major setback for Mayor Michelle Wu, who proposed and touted it as a “transformative investment” for the city.

A Wu administration intergovernmental representative for the Boston Public Schools called around to city councilors Tuesday, to inform them that the plan, proposed by the mayor and Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper last summer, was being shelved, and that the city would look to other sites for the O’Bryant, a City Hall source told the Herald.

The school district plans to inform affected families on Wednesday morning of the decision, which would also likely halt major renovations at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, which shares the Roxbury campus with the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, the source said, noting that construction was tied into the plan.

The mayor’s proposal had called for moving O’Bryant, one of the city’s three exam schools, into the vacant West Roxbury Educational Complex, which was aimed at expanding enrollment and offerings at both schools.

It was unveiled to great fanfare at a heavily-attended press conference held at the Malcolm X. Boulevard Campus, which houses both schools, last June. Attendees included Dr. Richard O’Bryant, whose father is the school’s namesake and son currently attends.

O’Bryant spoke in favor of the move, saying that it would lead to a STEM facility that would become the “gold standard” for such education in Boston, thereby fulfilling the mission of the school of mathematics and science.

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Despite the early support, the plan quickly generated a political firestorm, drawing an immediate rebuke from Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley, who said state officials were “blindsided” by the announcement while citing concerns with a price tag he estimated at roughly $1 billion, and heavy opposition from the community.

Following a heated City Council committee meeting, where community members cited a range of concerns around their lack of engagement in the plan and the transportation barrier that would be created for many students moved to the O’Bryant’s then-planned new site in West Roxbury, the body passed a resolution opposing the move, via a 10-2 vote, last December.

City Councilors Sharon Durkan and Ricardo Arroyo, who lost re-election, voted against the resolution, and now-City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune voted present.

According to a Feb. 7 letter City Councilor Ed Flynn wrote to the Boston School Committee, which was tasked with voting on the plan, the O’Bryant is currently located in the “heart of our city, where it is easily accessible by the MBTA and Orange Line and buses, whereas the West Roxbury Educational Complex is largely inaccessible by the MBTA.”

“The location poses huge challenges for students who are reliant on public transportation to get to school on time, especially during the early morning hours when buses and commuter rail schedules are more infrequent,” Flynn wrote, adding that commutes would be 1.5 to two hours for East Boston and Charlestown students.

City Councilor Erin Murphy released a statement last October that touched on the O’Bryant’s history as a “resource and a particularly beloved school community for Black families in Boston for generations.”

“The O’Bryant school community deserves to be, finally, treated with the respect and care it has earned,” Murphy said at the time. “Boston and BPS have plenty of buildings and sites to choose from that would not radically disrupt the O’Bryant’s long-standing connections to the neighborhoods, families and businesses that make it thrive.”

That blowback, it appears, has prompted the Wu administration and school district to pull the plan, but the mayor remains committed to finding a new location for the O’Bryant School, a City Hall source said.

“This is a big loss for the mayor,” the source said. “This was her big push. She had the O’Bryant family. She had this big plan and it was tied into the expansion of, renovating Madison Park High, moving the O’Bryant to its own space over in West Roxbury, but too many people were against it and she changed her plan.”

In introducing the plan last June, the mayor had described the changes as “generational change at a scale that we haven’t seen in quite some time in the district.” Space constraints have “in many ways, held the schools back,” she said.

“That can feel daunting,” Wu said at the time. “We have an opportunity here to make a transformative investment in our students and families, the future of our city,” the mayor said.

Moving the O’Bryant School is now on hold. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)