ACC/NU Residence Hall | 840 Columbus Ave | Northeastern University

Blackbird said:
It's making the area more desirable and giving students more cause to be there (whereas [lets face it] neu students in the past probably avoided the area as much as possible). This building (like Lightview) will likely be very expensive. So while normalizing the area in the minds of students, those same students will look for cheaper rents further south, pushing out families.
Click to expand...

I feel like this argument would have made sense 5-10 years ago, but this area is already normalized to NU students and has been for awhile. Pretty much every building near the proposed site is northeastern-owned or occupied by northeastern students. Whether this building exists or not isn't going to make a difference in students' perception of the area or their desire to move to surrounding apartments.
 
Blackbird said:
It's making the area more desirable and giving students more cause to be there (whereas [lets face it] neu students in the past probably avoided the area as much as possible). This building (like Lightview) will likely be very expensive. So while normalizing the area in the minds of students, those same students will look for cheaper rents further south, pushing out families.



Everything south of the tracks (and west of Mass Ave) is Roxbury. 🤨
Click to expand...
I should have been more specific, my bad. Everything south of the tracks is Roxbury, but to some NEU students, they don’t really consider anything past Tremont, so in their minds Roxbury = Tremont and Columbus only. And with NEU doing developments on Columbus, they’re thinking the university is developing 50% of what they perceive as Roxbury, wherein realty Columbus is just only one small portion of Roxbury.

That probably makes no sense, just disregard my incoherent rambling.
 
Apparently there's a protest against this dorm happening now...
www.facebook.com

Fight the NEU Luxury Dorm

Fight the NEU Luxury Dorm. 205 likes. Northeastern is further gentrifying Roxbury by building a luxury dorm at 840 Columbus Avenue. We must fight this gentrification! The Mayor and the BPDA should...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
 
shmorkin said:
Apparently there's a protest against this dorm happening now...
www.facebook.com

Fight the NEU Luxury Dorm

Fight the NEU Luxury Dorm. 205 likes. Northeastern is further gentrifying Roxbury by building a luxury dorm at 840 Columbus Avenue. We must fight this gentrification! The Mayor and the BPDA should...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
Click to expand...
Took a bit of digging but it looks like this "movement" is being put together by the "Boston Socialist Alternative", which is interesting because I presumed it was being pushed by students not an outside group. I agree with their concerns about ACC and the pricing structure used at LightView, but they totally lose me when they "demand" that affordable community housing be built on the site instead.
 
Last edited:
HelloBostonHi said:
Took a bit of digging but it looks like this "movement" is being put together by the "Boston Socialist Alternative", which is interesting because I presumed it was being pushed by students not an outside group. I agree with their concerns about ACC and the pricing structure used at LightView, but they totally lose me when they "demand" that affordable community housing be built on the site instead.
Click to expand...
Why not build affordable housing on the Tremont Crossing site?
 
commuter guy said:
Boston.com had an article today regarding the opposition to this project:

realestate.boston.com

Proposed 810-bed Northeastern dorm in Roxbury faces pushback from student groups - New Developments, News - Boston.com Real Estate

Plans for a 810-bed Northeastern University dorm currently under city review are facing a new round of criticism.
realestate.boston.com
Click to expand...

From the article:
“The luxury dorm is a project that will raise the cost of housing in Roxbury and contribute to the homelessness crisis in Boston,” Liam Easton-Calabria, an ER tech and Socialist Alternative organizer, said in a statement. “Massive schools like Northeastern are withholding so much funding because they are labelled as non-profits. We can’t afford to let them further gentrify our communities. We deserve to have social housing instead of luxury dorms, but we need to get organized and we need to fight to make this happen, that’s why I’m supporting this campaign.”

In a press release announcing the rally, organizers said students at local colleges and universities “should not be expected to pay exorbitant prices for dorms when they are required to live on campus.”
Click to expand...

FFS, can someone please show these students a supply-demand curve?!?!?! Economics wasn't my favorite undergrad class at Northeastern, either, but if they actually attended one they wouldn't be spewing nonsensical remarks like these. A luxury residence hall constructed exclusively for the use of NU student residents (plus retail and academic facilities open to greater community) helps their cause: it not only enables students able/willing to pay more for housing to free up older, non-'luxury' housing stock on campus, but also reduces the student demand for off-campus housing. Lower demand for housing in the neighborhood means that neighborhood housing supply will not face as much pressure to increase prices as years past, thus preserving affordability in Roxbury.

Historically, the inference among Bostonians when it comes to fearing gentrification is fear of displacement--displacement of long-established residents of a neighborhood because an influx of cash/investment is coming to it. The building site in question is a parking lot. Therefore, no people are being displaced from this site--cars are. (boo hoo for the cars... if only there was a 10-story parking garage 40 feet away for them to park at :cautious:) Equitable investment across our neighborhoods that--yes--gentrify it increase the taxable value of real estate in the City, which in turn enables the City to program more dollars for goods and services that benefit all of its residents (parks, schools, infrastructure, etc.). Higher and better uses of our parking lots, vacant lots, and condemned/antiquated properties is good for everyone.

Northeastern University is not the developer of 840 Columbus Avenue: American Campus Communities (ACC) is. And ACC, as a private developer, is not exempt from paying taxes to the City of Boston for this residence hall, even if it leases the beds to Northeastern. I noted this in a previous post up thread: Acc pays millions of dollars in taxes to City of Boston for Lightview. So Northeastern isn't withholding squat from this: there is a long-established demand for more on-campus housing, and the partnership NU strikes with private development partners like ACC and Phoenix Development (East Village) enables them to address that demand while simultaneously freeing up thousands (at this point) of beds in abutting neighborhoods for prospective, non-student renters, AND adding to the city's coffers.

As for Easton-Calabria's last remark, I want to note that the NU Residency Requirement applies only to first and second year students and there remains no shortage of antiquated, far-from-luxurious housing stock on campus at cheaper price points for more frugal students (the Stetsons, Speares, Whites, Willises, et al). I also want to note that the cost of housing on campus or off campus isn't news: the universities have been incredibly transparent for years as to the costs of different residence halls and informing prospective students about the costs of attending/living at the school(s). #buyerbeware
 
TomOfBoston said:
Why not build affordable housing on the Tremont Crossing site?
Click to expand...

Lol right. Im sure they dont even know it exists or the history of the site.

Theyre arguing against their own interests here, more dorms means less students cramming into apartments driving up rent in the immediate area. Stupid.
 
Last edited:
stick n move said:
Lol right. Im sure they dont even know it exists or the history of the site.

Theyre arguing against their own interests here, more dorms means less students cramming into apartments driving up rent in the immediate area. Stupid.
Click to expand...
That stretch of Columbus Avenue has been vacant lots and parking lots since at least the 1960's. And before that the north side was railroad yards.
 
That stretch of Columbus is looking better and better because of Northeastern's development. And the vast majority of it hasn't displaced anything except for surface parking and abandoned lots.

Also, Janey has now lost my vote. Good grief:
Also apparently opposed to Northeastern’s plans is acting Mayor Kim Janey.

Janey, the Roxbury city councilor who became the city’s chief executive last month after Marty Walsh resigned to serve as U.S. secretary of labor, wrote to the BPDA in December 2019 voicing “deep concerns” with the project.

“Throughout Northeastern’s expansion into its surrounding communities it has proven to be a disruptive force in the neighborhood,” Janey wrote. “The construction of facilities such as the $225 million Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex and Lightview Tower has expanded Northeastern’s footprint into the Lower Roxbury area and pushed out long-standing businesses and life-long residents. The new development stands to be no different and will certainly exacerbate the housing shortage and availability crisis to which Northeastern has heavily contributed.”
Click to expand...
 
cden4 said:
That stretch of Columbus is looking better and better because of Northeastern's development. And the vast majority of it hasn't displaced anything except for surface parking and abandoned lots.

Also, Janey has now lost my vote. Good grief:
Click to expand...
Ah yes, because building ISEC and Lightview pushed out the long-standing businesses of… two parking lots?
 
I also believe that the proximity to Northeastern got the rebuild of the Whittier projects priority. There are other public housing projects in the city that are in worse condition than Whittier.
 
Zash said:
I should have been more specific, my bad. Everything south of the tracks is Roxbury, but to some NEU students, they don’t really consider anything past Tremont, so in their minds Roxbury = Tremont and Columbus only. And with NEU doing developments on Columbus, they’re thinking the university is developing 50% of what they perceive as Roxbury, wherein realty Columbus is just only one small portion of Roxbury.

That probably makes no sense, just disregard my incoherent rambling.
Click to expand...

Based on a map of the city I saw recently, they marked everything north/northeast of Melnea Cass as the South End. So maybe I was wrong, but it doesn't feel right. Isn't Frederick Douglass Square a place in Roxbury? Doesn't Ruggles sit on the line between Fenway and Roxbury (not Fenway and the South End)?

I'm usually not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it seems like the city is trying to rebrand-away the neighborhood.

dshoost88 said:
A luxury residence hall constructed exclusively for the use of NU student residents
Click to expand...

I thought they were all leased properties?

In any case, why can't Northeastern bulldoze a few of its older dorms on the Huntington/Gainsborough side and build luxury towers over there instead? That sounds like it'd be a win for both sides: more beds for the schools but in an area that's already very rich and transient.
 
Last edited:
Blackbird said:
In any case, why can't Northeastern bulldoze a few of its older dorms on the Huntington/Gainsborough side and build luxury towers over there instead? That sounds like it'd be a win for both sides: more beds for the schools but in an area that's already very rich and transient.
Click to expand...

If Northeastern proposed that the Fenway NIMBY's would be outraged. Yeah, I can see Hemenway and St. Stephen streets lined with high rise dorms but the "community" would never allow it. And some of the NIMBY's would be the same ones opposing 840 Columbus. Not to mention the Democratic Socialists who oppose everything.
 
Blackbird said:
In any case, why can't Northeastern bulldoze a few of its older dorms on the Huntington/Gainsborough side and build luxury towers over there instead? That sounds like it'd be a win for both sides: more beds for the schools but in an area that's already very rich and transient.
Click to expand...

+1 on TomOfBoston's post, and also that is exactly what Northeastern plans to do. The two very next projects planned after the completion of 840 Columbus are a dorm on Ryder Lot and a dorm replacing the Burstein/Rubenstein dorms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top