The University hopes to raze 1730 Cambridge Street and relocate the residential building at right.

Knafel Reconceived

The price tag has more than doubled to approximately $60 million, but local reaction to a revised proposal for the Knafel Center for Government and International Studies is improving--a bit (see "Limits to Growth?" March-April 1998). A year ago, when the University released "pre-schematics" for the center that suggested putting a large building on the expanse of lawn behind the Graduate School of Design's (GSD) Gund Hall, a group of neighbors organized the Campaign to Stop the Knafel Center. Their concerns involved not only the loss of green space, but fears that proposals to move or demolish several wood-frame buildings at the perimeter of the site would destroy the scale, and hence the transitional character, of the neighborhood.

Harvard planners clearly got the message. They now frequently refer to the "soft edges of the campus," places where University properties intermingle with private residences. And, most relevant to mid-Cantabrigians, they have come up with an alternate proposal for the Knafel Center that calls for comprehensive landscaping of the largely preserved green space behind Gund, and the construction instead of 166,000 square feet of space in two new buildings opposite each other on Cambridge Street, connected by a tunnel and occupying roughly the sites of two current University office buildings.

Harvard's new plan still faces hurdles, however, since it requires the demolition of the 86,000-square-foot Coolidge Hall, an undistinguished, converted hotel housing government faculty offices, and the 32,000-square-foot University Information Services (UIS) building at 1730 Cambridge Street (see photograph above). To raze Coolidge Hall, which is more than 50 years old, will automatically trigger a review by the Cambridge Historical Commission. Changes at the UIS site must be approved by the Mid-Cambridge Conservation Commission. And constructing a tunnel under Cambridge Street will likely require that certain utility lines be moved; in any case, only the Cambridge City Council can grant an easement for passage under the right of way. Finally, a zoning district line passes right through Coolidge Hall, which is six and a half stories high. On one side of the line, building heights up to 120 feet are allowed; on the other, 35 feet is the maximum. "Anything we design on these two sites will require community approval, so our continued dialogue with the mid-Cambridge community and city officials will clearly be important," says associate dean for physical resources and planning David Zewinski '76. Even if all the necessary approvals are forthcoming, construction is likely to be two years or more in the future.

University officials believe the neighborhood would benefit under the new proposal, which takes into consideration future expansion plans of the nearby Fogg and Sackler Museums (see "Museums Ponder Missing Link," July-August 1998) by addressing possible infrastructure and construction-timetable synergies between the art museums and the proposed government center. The tunnel, for example, would allow the eventual consolidation of five area loading docks into a single subterranean one. And the resulting freed space would allow the Fogg to create a second entrance opposite the Sackler, and the Sackler to construct a park-like pedestrian corridor beside the museum.

Preliminary plans for the two new Knafel buildings are being developed by project architect Harry M. Cobb '47, M.Arch. '49, of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. (Cobb, a former GSD faculty member, determined that the original plan to renovate Coolidge Hall as part of the Knafel Center would have cost 80 percent as much as a new building, and ultimately produce a less satisfactory result). His projected new building on the Gund Hall side of Cambridge Street would be approximately 86,000 square feet, with a footprint smaller than the underground space below it. (Preliminary plans include a café to be shared with the GSD, freeing up space in Gund Hall now used for a cafeteria). The new building on the UIS site would be slightly smaller: 80,000 square feet. Harvard's director for Cambridge community relations, Mary Power, says the University will experience a net gain of roughly 46,000 square feet due to the Knafel project, or 30,000 square feet less than the original plan.

So why will the Knafel Center cost more than double its original estimate? First, because the amount of new construction doubles under the current proposal. And second, the new plan costs a little more because Harvard had to buy a wood-frame residential building next door to the UIS building in order to let the new plan take shape. The cost of that house, which the University will likely have to move, is just over $1 million.

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