Boston University may join the ranks of Harvard University and Boston College and have its own downtown club if the Board of Trustees approves a proposal from event production company Longwood Events.
Longwood Events, owned by BU alumnus Jim Apteker, bought Boston’s Bay Tower restaurant after it recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Longwood is renovating the restaurant to revitalize the club and said he wants to involve a local university.
“I felt when I started to take it over that the Bay Club had no real draw for someone to be a member besides having lunch,” he said. “It didn’t have a niche or a good reason a person would join. So, I started investigating and found many university clubs are ones that do well.”
Once he acquired the property, Apteker said BU became an obvious choice for the facility.
“I thought about renaming it, and I thought BU didn’t have a club,” he said. “I started calling up BU alums and formed a committee. We are going to the BU Board of Trustees to get our proposal approved at the next meeting.”
Although the Trustees approval would allow the facility to be associated with BU, Longwood Events will foot the bill for making it a facility capable of accommodating larger groups, Apteker said.
“The club would get dues, and the dues would pay for all the renovations,” Apteker said. “BU would not subsidize one penny.”
The 300,000-square foot club, which currently occupies the top two floors at 60 State St., has 10 suites, a restaurant and a small ballroom. The renovations, costing more than $300,000, would create a single tier with a large ballroom.
Apteker said he hopes to bolster membership from 347 to around 1,000. While the club would be private, the space would still be open for outside events.
BU alumni and their friends would be eligible for membership, allowing them to eat lunch at the club and receive discounted rates. The dues may be kept at $750 or increased to $1,000, Apteker said.
But while the club may rely on alumni interest to spark membership, some students seemed less than enthused about the prospect of joining after graduation.
“It’s nice to having something like that,” said Elise Schroeder, a College of Arts and Sciences junior. “I don’t know if I would pay for it though.”
Metropolitan College senior Jon Lewis said dues could be a burden on new graduates.
“As a senior, I think it would be great to have a club designed specifically for Boston University alumni,” Lewis said. “However, I also think that most recent graduates would find the high dues unappealing.”
BU previously had only a small club that met monthly for lunch at various places, and Apteker said the club at Bay Tower would represent the first stationary club for BU.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said he did not know about the plans for the club or the upcoming Trustees’ vote.
While the Bay Tower club fell on hard times as it suffered low membership numbers, Apteker said associating it with BU would encourage alumni to join.
“People really flocked to the university clubs and felt a sense of ownership there,” he said.
The new name for the club is pending approval from its board of governors, but Apteker said Longwood Events is not waiting to start booking events – the Democratic National Committee has already booked the hall for its convention’s closing party this summer.