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Harvard School of Dental Medicine announced a permanent shutdown of its Cambridge dental clinic in a Wednesday email to patients, six months after the practice was temporarily closed following an electrical fire.

HSDM Dean William V. Giannobile cited “current financial challenges” and difficulties following the fire in the email, adding that all services have been redirected to the school’s Longwood clinic. The Harvard Dental Center’s Cambridge practice, located at 114 Mt. Auburn Street, was closed after the April fire caused water and smoke damage to the clinic’s facility and dental equipment.

The Cambridge practice was one of two HDC locations and hosted the Center’s faculty group practice, where HSDM professors provided patient care to both Harvard and non-Harvard affiliates.

The Dental Center’s second location in Longwood houses the teaching practice where HSDM students and residents in-training provide care under faculty supervision at lower visit costs.

After the fire, faculty and staff from 114 Mt. Auburn moved to the Longwood location, which now houses both the faculty and teaching practices, according to HSDM spokesperson Heather Denny.

Denny wrote in an email that the decision not to reopen the Cambridge practice months follows a multi-step assessment of fire damage, restoration, and permitting needed to rebuild.

“During this time, we began an in-depth assessment of multiple options to determine a fiscally sustainable long-term solution,” Denny wrote.

“After a series of setbacks, and facing current financial headwinds, it is no longer sustainable for us to operate the practice in Cambridge,” Denny added.

Harvard is currently facing major financial hurdles following a massive endowment tax hike and federal funding cuts, reporting its first budget deficit of $113 million since 2020. Several schools have laid off faculty and staff and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences reduced Ph.D. admissions slots by more than 50 percent.

The University also cited financial concerns in its December 2020 closure of the Harvard Dental Service and Pharmacy under Harvard University Health Services during the pandemic. It reopened dental services as the Harvard Dental Center — Cambridge less than two months later at the same location.

Craig A. Lambert ’69 — a Cambridge resident who has been receiving dental care from the clinic for the past 60 years, including when it was formerly operated under Harvard University Health Services — said that the shift to the Longwood practice has made accessing dental care “vastly more inconvenient.”

Lambert said the clinic’s relocation to Longwood more than doubled his commute time and has significantly increased his costs for parking. The clinics are located 3.5 miles away by car.

While Lambert said he would pay “no more than $4” to park nearby the Cambridge clinic, the parking fee for the Longwood clinic costs $17 per visit.

Harvard Physics professor John E. Huth, who has been receiving dental care from the clinic since he joined the University faculty in 1993, said it was “a lot easier to walk into the Square and take an appointment.”

Huth said that getting to the Longwood clinic has been “much more challenging” due to the traffic and distance to drive to the clinic and has created new inconveniences, from costs of taking an Uber to the search for parking. Huth also added that the MBTA subway “takes forever to get to Longwood from Harvard.”

Denny, the HSDM spokesperson, wrote that the Longwood location offers discounted parking and “is accessible by MBTA, bus, or the M2 shuttle which goes directly from Cambridge to Longwood and is free for Harvard ID holders.”

“Many Cambridge patients have already started seeing their dental providers in Longwood, however we understand that for some patients the location will not be as convenient,” she added. “For those patients who wish to find a new dental practice, we can assist them with obtaining their dental records and making the transition as smooth as possible.”

Huth also said that the clinic has been “a bit more crowded” after the Longwood clinic absorbed patients from the Cambridge clinic. But he said the clinic’s quality of care did not appear to have changed.

Denny wrote in an email that the Dental Center is still evaluating the spatial capacity of the clinic, along with staffing requirements.

“We are actively assessing our clinical spaces, dental chair utilization, and staffing needs in Longwood to ensure we meet capacity and continue to maintain our educational, research, and patient service mission,” she wrote.

—Staff writer Annabel M. Yu can be reached at annabel.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @annabelmyu.

—Staff writer Sheerea X. Yu can be reached at sheerea.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @_shuhree_.