Suffolk announces plans to shrink proposed dorm, But residents want more talk about its future plans by Suzanne Besser
Early last week, Suffolk University officials said that they had decided to scale down the size of its proposed new dorm, but many residents say the school is on the wrong track and should spend time planning for its future.
In response to neighborhood concerns about the size of the proposed dorm at 20 Somerset Street, the university decided to reduce the height from 31 stories to 22 and drop the number of students housed there from about 800 to between 520 and 550. It also will move the loading dock away from the adjacent Garden of Peace, a memorial to victims of homicide which supporters fear would be negatively impacted by the dorm.
Architectural plans for the revised building are currently being drawn, and no official documents have yet been forwarded to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said Suffolk spokesman Michael Feeley.
Some residents feel the reduction in size is not a compromise at all but rather a strategy the university used to get what they wanted in the first place, said Molly Sherden, vice president of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. ?It would be nice to say we all sat down and found a compromise, but this is really not a compromise.?
?I don?t know if that is true or not,? said state Representative Marty Walz. ?But that?s not the conversation we should be having. In some sense, Suffolk has put the cart before the horse.?
Walz believes there are two things the university should be addressing: its master plan for growth and its student behavior. To its credit, she said, it has begun to work on the latter by putting into effect a new plan to reduce student misbehavior this fall. ?But working with no master plan is a tremendous barrier,? said Walz. ?We are all talking in a vacuum.?
The lack of a long-range plan for both academic and residential growth has been a source of frustration for members of the Suffolk Task Force. Chair Robert Whitney said without such a plan, university acquisitions appear ?opportunist? and are difficult to evaluate. ?The current and now changed proposal for residences in general is not part of their existing plan, and, as a result, it is difficult to see how the dorm fits into it,? he said.
Another task force member, Bowdoin Street resident Tim Padera, said he was disappointed that Suffolk said neighbors? opposition was why it reduced the size of the building. ?If this is a compromise, they have missed the point. In the task force meetings, we are trying to find where Suffolk is going. It seems to be planning for 2007 but not for 2027,? he said.
?The message we hoped it heard from the Beacon Hill community is that we are not comfortable with Suffolk expanding its campus here,? he said, referring to Suffolk?s goal to expand its campus to 5000 students, which means a gradual influx of 1000 additional students.
?To accommodate this goal, Suffolk needs to expand both its housing and its academic space, which are well below the nationally recommended sizes,? said Padera. ?Just one dorm isn?t going to solve its housing problems. Where is it going? Now is the opportunity to plan for the future and shift its center of gravity near Tremont Street where there is more room for growth.?
That the neighborhood may not be able to absorb an additional influx of college students is of concern to the BHCA, said Sherden. ?There is a delicate balance of age groups, income groups, businesses and institutions on the Hill. If we get too many of any one element, the balance is thrown over. We have to decide what the tipping point is of college students ? is it another 500? 1000? What is the correct balance??
An attorney herself, Sherden has been frustrated with the process so far and believes a real negotiation would be for residents to sit down, talk about a plan for future growth and look at other alternatives for locating the dorm. ?The conversation should be about what is good for the neighborhood, what is good for Suffolk and what is good for its students,? she said.
Beacon Hill Times
Early last week, Suffolk University officials said that they had decided to scale down the size of its proposed new dorm, but many residents say the school is on the wrong track and should spend time planning for its future.
In response to neighborhood concerns about the size of the proposed dorm at 20 Somerset Street, the university decided to reduce the height from 31 stories to 22 and drop the number of students housed there from about 800 to between 520 and 550. It also will move the loading dock away from the adjacent Garden of Peace, a memorial to victims of homicide which supporters fear would be negatively impacted by the dorm.
Architectural plans for the revised building are currently being drawn, and no official documents have yet been forwarded to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said Suffolk spokesman Michael Feeley.
Some residents feel the reduction in size is not a compromise at all but rather a strategy the university used to get what they wanted in the first place, said Molly Sherden, vice president of the Beacon Hill Civic Association. ?It would be nice to say we all sat down and found a compromise, but this is really not a compromise.?
?I don?t know if that is true or not,? said state Representative Marty Walz. ?But that?s not the conversation we should be having. In some sense, Suffolk has put the cart before the horse.?
Walz believes there are two things the university should be addressing: its master plan for growth and its student behavior. To its credit, she said, it has begun to work on the latter by putting into effect a new plan to reduce student misbehavior this fall. ?But working with no master plan is a tremendous barrier,? said Walz. ?We are all talking in a vacuum.?
The lack of a long-range plan for both academic and residential growth has been a source of frustration for members of the Suffolk Task Force. Chair Robert Whitney said without such a plan, university acquisitions appear ?opportunist? and are difficult to evaluate. ?The current and now changed proposal for residences in general is not part of their existing plan, and, as a result, it is difficult to see how the dorm fits into it,? he said.
Another task force member, Bowdoin Street resident Tim Padera, said he was disappointed that Suffolk said neighbors? opposition was why it reduced the size of the building. ?If this is a compromise, they have missed the point. In the task force meetings, we are trying to find where Suffolk is going. It seems to be planning for 2007 but not for 2027,? he said.
?The message we hoped it heard from the Beacon Hill community is that we are not comfortable with Suffolk expanding its campus here,? he said, referring to Suffolk?s goal to expand its campus to 5000 students, which means a gradual influx of 1000 additional students.
?To accommodate this goal, Suffolk needs to expand both its housing and its academic space, which are well below the nationally recommended sizes,? said Padera. ?Just one dorm isn?t going to solve its housing problems. Where is it going? Now is the opportunity to plan for the future and shift its center of gravity near Tremont Street where there is more room for growth.?
That the neighborhood may not be able to absorb an additional influx of college students is of concern to the BHCA, said Sherden. ?There is a delicate balance of age groups, income groups, businesses and institutions on the Hill. If we get too many of any one element, the balance is thrown over. We have to decide what the tipping point is of college students ? is it another 500? 1000? What is the correct balance??
An attorney herself, Sherden has been frustrated with the process so far and believes a real negotiation would be for residents to sit down, talk about a plan for future growth and look at other alternatives for locating the dorm. ?The conversation should be about what is good for the neighborhood, what is good for Suffolk and what is good for its students,? she said.
Beacon Hill Times
