Campus, News

East Campus Center construction to begin this fall

Boston University is making headway in a plan to develop the East Campus Center for Student Services that would combine academic resources with the Myles Standish, Shelton and Towers dining halls into one facility located on 100 Bay State Rd., President Robert Brown said.

“We’re now entering the discussions about permitting,” he said in an interview with The Daily Free Press. “The programming is done, the architectural work is ongoing, and now because Bay State Road is a historically marked district, we have a very sensitive and complicated set of discussions and there will be hearings and other things that are necessary to get the architectural approval for it.”

He said that he hoped construction would begin in the fall.

“The most important thing to you is that it is open and operative in September 2012,” he said. “We’re still on schedule.”

Brown said the Center would be especially convenient for students because it would contain student facilities in one central location, as opposed to having them scattered around campus as they are now.

“I think it’s an incredibly important project for us because I think it’s going to be a very visible place where we highlight what I think of as essential student services, things like career services, an educational resource center, the writing program in CAS, pre-professional advising in CAS, freshman advising in CAS, all in one integrated facility,” he said.

He added that BU is consolidating the aforementioned CAS services right now, but those efforts aren’t visible due to the lack of a central location for these resources.

“And all of a sudden [resources] will be really visible [in 2012],” Brown said. “It’ll also free up a lot of space for CAS and things like that.”

Concerning the dining hall consolidation, Brown said the Center would retain the original dormitory dining halls’ features while modernizing the structure and providing greater variety of food options.

“What you’ll find is . . . a modern facility with all the amenities in it and different kinds of places you can eat and different atmospheres in a large facility,” he said. “[A dining hall] that you can really keep open with a lot of variation in what you serve gives a lot of advantages.”

Officials have yet to decide what kind of food services East Campus dormitories will retain when they are stripped of their full dining halls, Brown said.

CAS senior Joe Clark, who works at Towers Late Nite, said that he’s heard rumors of the new facility but dining hall management has not openly spoken of it.

“Nobody’s talked about it. I don’t know how they’re going to staff it,” he said. “I doubt they’ll need as many students if it’s as big as they say it is.”

He added that he didn’t see the need for a new dining facility.

“I don’t know if change for change’s sake is a good thing. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I don’t see the need for [the Center].”

“I think it’ll be good for BU unity,” School of Management sophomore Will Cox said. “The downfall of it will be breakfast because nobody wants to walk in the cold Boston weather just to get a delicious omelet.”

CAS juniors Abby Griffith and Mai Wong said they wouldn’t have a problem with a new dining facility as long as it was convenient.

“They would have to make sure it’s big. Towers is already overcrowded, so combining three dining halls together runs the risk of there being little room,” Griffith said.

“They should have more food options like in West,” Wong added.

Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences junior Kristin Egbert said she hoped the current East Campus dining halls would still have a purpose.

“They should turn the Towers basement into a grab-and-go place with more options,” she said.

SMG sophomore Liz Swahn said the new Center might improve dining options in East Campus.

“It might be a good idea because West was new and drew a lot of attention, so this could do the same for East Campus,” she said.

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