Students living in the Student Village Apartments at 10 Buick St. will have to deal with hassles from construction and demolition between 7 a.m.-3 p.m. starting in May and continuing for at least two years, according to Marc Robillard, Boston University’s director of Housing.
For the duration of the project, which will include the upcoming final exam period, 525 parking spaces will be lost from the lot outside the building.
Robillard and David Flynn, BU’s director of Major Construction Office of the Senior Vice President held a meeting on the 18th floor of 10 Buick St. last night to inform residents of the various hindrances that will be imposed upon them during the completion of “The Student Village Project.” About 40 students attended.
Robillard said the purpose of the meeting was to allow the current and potential residents of the Student Village to “understand what the construction project will have on [their] quality of life.”
Flynn said BU intends to embark on Phase I of three phases of the two to two-and-a-half year project on May 1. The now standing apartments are “just the beginning of a much larger vision, what we call the Student Village,” he said.
During Phase I of the plan, which will take place May 1-20, the storage building on the Northwest corner of the proposed construction site will be transplanted to another area, Flynn said. The remaining space will be used as a roadway to eliminate mass traffic on Buick Street during the demolition and construction.
Most demolition and construction activity will take place during the day from 7 a.m.-3:00 p.m., in accordance with the workers’ union guidelines. There will be almost no construction on the weekends, but the times are always subject to fluctuation, according to the conductors of the meeting, Robillard said.
Phase II calls for the old brick buildings that slouch between groupings of towering dormitories to be demolished to make way for the construction of the new facilities. Approximately 175,000 cubic yards of dirt will be removed, which translates into about 1,800 truck loads of dirt flowing out of the construction site and onto Commonwealth Avenue, Flynn said. This phase will be conducted immediately after Commencement and will continue until August 31.
The third and final phase will be initialized in September of this year and will hopefully be completed by October 2004, Flynn said. During this phase, the construction of The Student Village will be finished.
Although the completed project will have about 1,000 parking spaces, students will be faced with the loss of 525 spaces during demolition of the now-standing buildings on the site, including the Armory. Robillard said he was aware of the large inconvenience the project will place on the students and is attempting to make alternative parking arrangements, such as greater student availability to parking spaces off campus.
Specifics on how much the new parking will cost for students and how many spaces will be available still remain to be seen, Robillard said.
The three new dormitories constructed will bring the current 817-resident capacity to approximately 2,400 students.
Upon completion, the new BU Arena will stand on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Harry Agganis Way.
A “centralized recreation area” of BU, complete with a 25-meter competition pool as well as a leisure pool, will be constructed directly to the east of the new arena on Commonwealth Avenue. The recreation building will also have a three-story climbing wall, dance studios and multiple gymnasiums and fitness rooms.
Activities that now take place in the soon-to-be demolished Armory will be transferred to a new track and tennis facility that will be completed at 100 Ashford St. by the end of this spring, Flynn said. The indoor athletic facility will be equipped with six tennis courts and a basketball court encircled by a track.
Boston University does not have all of the required permits to begin construction at this time, but Flynn said he expects that the approvals will be made before the projected start date.
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