Northeastern University - Institutional Master Plan

I saw a video on Vimeo from the Northeastern Advancement office. This will be the last season for Matthews Arena. They are planning to sell seats and other artifacts to alumni and others after a celebratory closing ceremony next spring.
 
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Northeastern has announced the dates for 2026 commencement at Fenway Park. The article also states this:

"In addition, each of the university’s seven colleges will host individual celebrations in April at Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston’s Seaport."

They are normally held at Matthews so it appears that by April 2026, Matthews will be gone.
 
is it really unfeasible to keep and renovate Matthews arena? I find northeastern's determination that it's "impossible" to reinforce the buildings' foundations very dubious, especially given the decades of restoration experience the world and even Boston alone has with hydraulically lifting and fully rebuilding the foundations under a structure. the other facilities they plan to construct on the site can occupy the surrounding flat lots with relative ease, and a parking garage can be built under the building once it's lifted just fine. also the claim of the toxic ground being an issue is also suspect because after this long most of those chemicals have settled and only become a risk when you expose them to rainwater, which entirely demolishing the arena would do (even if only during the construction process). I know I seem like an anti development prick with all I've said but seriously, this place is the original home of the bruins the whalers and the Celtics, Muhammad Ali trained here, numerous presidents have given speeches here, I think we stand to lose something very important with this arena that is, by most counts, still effective as a multipurpose indoor arena. even if in my passion some of the things I've said here aren't correct, collectively I think it provides more then enough incentive to take the effort to really double check if this is the only way forward. especially when they're prepared to drop 300 million on the project. most people will still be fans of teams regardless of where they play, including me, but without this arena the huskies are just a pretty good college hockey team rather then one that people are proud to root for and travel to visit because it plays in the world's oldest arena that is the birthplace of so many of the names that gave our city it's beloved moniker.
 
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Hooledeli said:
is it really unfeasible to keep and renovate Matthews arena? I find northeastern's determination that it's "impossible" to reinforce the buildings' foundations very dubious, especially given the decades of restoration experience the world and even Boston alone has with hydraulically lifting and fully rebuilding the foundations under a structure. the other facilities they plan to construct on the site can occupy the surrounding flat lots with relative ease, and a parking garage can be built under the building once it's lifted just fine. also the claim of the toxic ground being an issue is also suspect because after this long most of those chemicals have settled and only become a risk when you expose them to rainwater, which entirely demolishing the arena would do (even if only during the construction process). I know I seem like an anti development prick with all I've said but seriously, this place is the original home of the bruins the whalers and the Celtics, Muhammad Ali trained here, numerous presidents have given speeches here, I think we stand to lose something very important with this arena that is, by most counts, still effective as a multipurpose indoor arena. even if in my passion some of the things I've said here aren't correct, collectively I think it provides more then enough incentive to take the effort to really double check if this is the only way forward. especially when they're prepared to drop 300 million on the project. most people will still be fans of teams regardless of where they play, including me, but without this arena the huskies are just a pretty good college hockey team rather then one that people are proud to root for and travel to visit because it plays in the world's oldest arena that is the birthplace of so many of the names that gave our city it's beloved moniker.
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It’s ugly.
 
Hooledeli said:
is it really unfeasible to keep and renovate Matthews arena? I find northeastern's determination that it's "impossible" to reinforce the buildings' foundations very dubious, especially given the decades of restoration experience the world and even Boston alone has with hydraulically lifting and fully rebuilding the foundations under a structure. the other facilities they plan to construct on the site can occupy the surrounding flat lots with relative ease, and a parking garage can be built under the building once it's lifted just fine. also the claim of the toxic ground being an issue is also suspect because after this long most of those chemicals have settled and only become a risk when you expose them to rainwater, which entirely demolishing the arena would do (even if only during the construction process). I know I seem like an anti development prick with all I've said but seriously, this place is the original home of the bruins the whalers and the Celtics, Muhammad Ali trained here, numerous presidents have given speeches here, I think we stand to lose something very important with this arena that is, by most counts, still effective as a multipurpose indoor arena. even if in my passion some of the things I've said here aren't correct, collectively I think it provides more then enough incentive to take the effort to really double check if this is the only way forward. especially when they're prepared to drop 300 million on the project. most people will still be fans of teams regardless of where they play, including me, but without this arena the huskies are just a pretty good college hockey team rather then one that people are proud to root for and travel to visit because it plays in the world's oldest arena that is the birthplace of so many of the names that gave our city it's beloved moniker.
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I read, and I cannot find that source now, that to rehab Matthews would cost at least $100 million and would require Matthews to be unavailable for at least a year.

And building an underground parking garage on filled land, or on land straddling the original shoreline would be impossible.
 
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Link
 
What are they doing around Cabot? I see no info on the Northeastern website.

And is the White Hall replacement underway?
 
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