Demolition to clear sites for Boston University’s new Life Science and Engineering Building and new graduate student housing at 580 Commonwealth Ave. will begin in four weeks, BU officials said yesterday after the Boston Redevelopment Authority unanimously approved plans for the two projects during its annual Board of Directors meeting.
The BRA also approved BU’s third Institutional Master Plan during the meeting, concluding a six-month community feedback and approval process which included seven meetings with leaders of area neighborhood associations. The document outlines BU’s general plans for the campus for the next seven years.
Construction on BU’s two newly-approved projects will begin at the end of May, according to BU senior vice president Richard Towle.
The $84 million new Life Science and Engineering Building, to be located on the current site of the Nickelodeon Theater on Cummington Street, will house research facilities in biology, chemistry and bioinformatics, according to BU officials. The new graduate student housing, which will replace a smaller and older building at 580 Commonwealth Ave., is expected to cost $29 million, Towle said. The housing, BU’s first project of the type, will add 220 units specifically for graduate students.
Construction on the Life Science and Engineering Building is expected to take 22 months, and the graduate student housing building is expected to be ready for Sept. 2004, Towle said.
‘We are excited to move these forward,’ Towle said after the meeting. ‘This is a major advance of our science program, as well as a new opportunity to provide a new amenity graduate housing.’
The board approved the two plans and the university’s Master Plan after BU officials ran through brief descriptions of the documents at the meeting. Community members were also allowed time to make final public comments on the documents, though the official comment period ended at the beginning of March.
Boston City Councilor Jerry McDermott (Allston/Brighton) spoke in favor of the documents, saying the BU’s Community Task Force process was ‘good.’ The BU Community Task Force approved the three documents in early February.
McDermott also said the projects will have a positive economic impact in his district and add ‘much-needed’ graduate student housing, which will free up space for families in Allston and Brighton.
Sixteen area residents, including several top BU employees and a former BU graduate student, spoke briefly in favor of the documents. School of Education dean Douglas Sears, Judicial Affairs director Daryl DeLuca, Office of Residence Life director Jack Weldon, West Campus ORL director John Piga and Warren Towers ORL director Karen Belanger all spoke as residents of the area in favor of the documents.
Though Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association vice president Robert Canterbury attacked the fact that a number of the people speaking in favor of the plans were BU employees, Towle defended their rights to make comments and said BU officials did not coordinate the effort. He called Canterbury’s complaints ‘pretty incredible.’
‘I don’t think residents who happen to be employees of the university lose their right to comment,’ Towle said after the meeting.
Canterbury and two other Audubon Circle residents spoke in opposition to the documents, each at great length.
All three raised the issue of an agreement they claim BU has ignored requiring BU to divest in 29 properties the university owns south of Beacon Street in exchange for buying the old Boston Armory, though members of the BRA Board of Directors and BU officials both called the residents’ claims into question.
Board of Directors members and BU officials said problems with the 1980 Armory agreement had been settled with another agreement during the early 1990s. Towle said BU put the issue to bed long ago.
‘It’s a small minority of people, and you saw all three of them, who continue to bring this issue up,’ Towle said. ‘That doesn’t stop them from clinging to that issue, but we think it’s moot and it’s been extinguished.’
Canterbury also complained that the Task Force approval process had been ‘controlled’ by BU and that the school had thrust on the Task Force three separate plans for approval during the same time period. All three also complained that the new Master Plan lacked boundaries for BU’s campus.
The BRA Board of Directors also approved preliminary plans for Harvard’s renovation of a central Business School library building on the school’s Allston campus during the meeting.
