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March-April 2007
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Harvard's 50-Year PlanTen million square feet of new buildings, as many as 12,000 new jobs, and many billions of dollars: the numbers alone suggest the scope of Harvard’s plans over the next 50 years for a new urban campus in Allston. To put things in context, realization of the plans would increase the University’s physical plant by more than 40 percent, and its total workforce of faculty and staff by nearly 80 percent. Harvard embarked on the mandatory yearlong public review of this multi-decade campus-building project on January 11, when it filed an Institutional Master Plan (IMP) notification with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA). Highlights of the proposed campus include the decking over of Soldiers Field Road on both sides of the Larz Anderson Bridge, the reclamation of 30 acres of open space from existing industrial land, and the creation of two new river crossings: a pedestrian way parallel to the Larz Anderson Bridge that would cede the existing sidewalk to bicycle traffic, and a widening of Weeks Bridge to allow passage of public-transit shuttles serving the area. Within the campus, entirely new streets are proposed, in addition to an initial 5,550 underground parking spaces. All of the proposals will require approval from the City of Boston, and many will require the participation of state agencies if they are to be realized. Slides:
The principal elements of the plan have been outlined before: move the schools of education and public health to Allston; possibly build graduate and undergraduate housing; move elements of the art, anthropology, and natural history museums to an area that will also feature a performing-arts center; and, especially, build millions of square feet of space for scientific research. New information in the IMP includes the phasing of these elements, the specific locations for each, and details such as the nearly total replacement of athletic facilities. Part of that project would involve renovation and relocation of Dillon Field House to the area next to North Harvard Street now occupied by Blodgett Pool; it would serve as a student center welcoming people across the Larz Anderson Bridge at the halfway point on the walk between the Cambridge and Allston campuses, and would adjoin new undergraduate residential houses that would replace the existing riverside sports buildings and fields. There might even be wind turbines at the northern end of the current athletic fields as part of a bid to build a sustainable campus. Links to the official University announcement and to an executive summary of the plan: The IMP is divided into two parts, an initial phase of 20 years for which Harvard is seeking BRA approval, and a second phase that projects development needs 50 years out. “Looking out 50 years, you don’t really know what is going to happen,” noted David McGregor ’63, of the University’s planning firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners. The IMP, which incorporates uses suggested by four Harvard task forces—on professional schools, undergraduate life, arts and culture, and science—is therefore meant to be illustrative of how one might arrange uses, he said. “It proves that you can take the program and fit it in Harvard’s cargo ship. You have set the streets, you have set the open spaces, you have set how the transportation and utilities work—the framework is in place so that you can make decisions as you come to them.” 1 | 2 | continued >  
 
 
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