BU Development Thread

[Matthew]

I am all for ground level retail in this area, however BU is a college and their job is to provide academic/housing/dining/athletic/study space for their students, not to provide retail for the average Boston resident, just saying.

(a) Retail space is a major benefit for their students and (b) if they want an urban campus then they have certain responsibilities to keep: such as playing nicely with the city they're occupying.

The city has a vested interest in not being cut up into a dozen different turfs that wall each other off. And frankly, it's not in BU's long term interest to create such a turf. That is, if they have any interest in being an actual university and not simply a day-care center for 18-22 year-olds from rich families.

 

[TomOfBoston]

(a) Retail space is a major benefit for their students and (b) if they want an urban campus then they have certain responsibilities to keep: such as playing nicely with the city they're occupying.

The city has a vested interest in not being cut up into a dozen different turfs that wall each other off. And frankly, it's not in BU's long term interest to create such a turf. That is, if they have any interest in being an actual university and not simply a day-care center for 18-22 year-olds from rich families.

You come across as a bitter BU applicant who was rejected.

 

[Jrubbs]

You come across as a bitter BU applicant who was rejected.

Agreed, I was also unaware that having a campus with no ground floor retail made the campus a day-care center. By that standard most colleges are day-care centers. In addition people go to urban schools so they can be in the city. If your campus is filled with retail space then you are much less likely to leave your campus and go out to the rest of the city. Also when I am on campus I want to be surrounded by other people my age, I don't need to see my mom and her friends coming to shop as I am leaving my dorm

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Agreed, I was also unaware that having a campus with no ground floor retail made the campus a day-care center. By that standard most colleges are day-care centers. In addition people go to urban schools so they can be in the city. If your campus is filled with retail space then you are much less likely to leave your campus and go out to the rest of the city. Also when I am on campus I want to be surrounded by other people my age, I don't need to see my mom and her friends coming to shop as I am leaving my dorm

Wow. If I were told when I was an undergrad there 15 years ago that it was BU's explicit job to shelter me 100% of the time around only students my age so I never ever encountered people different from me...I would've picked a different school entirely or transferred the fuck out of there. Who chooses to go to school at a supposedly borderless campus in the middle of the city when the entirety of the non- BU-sanctioned parts of the city is hidden behind curtains???


Again, you are starting from an assumption that present-day conditions were eternal and that ground-floor retail is some sort of burden on them. That is not true at all. They initiated the change by chasing out the ground-floor retail that used to be along Comm Ave. as little as a few years ago. The Charles River Campus thrived just fine for the whole of the second half of the 20th century intermixed with independent retail.

So answer the question: why is it BU's obligation to evict ground-floor retail? Are they enrolling some more virulent strain of Ritalin kids for the Class of 2020 who are in need of way more sensory deprivation than the Class of 2012 who turned out just fine?

 

[underground]

You come across as a bitter BU applicant who was rejected.

And you come across like someone who uses ad hominem in lieu of having an actual counter argument. Because that's what you did.

 

[tangent]

I am all for ground level retail in this area, however BU is a college and their job is to provide academic/housing/dining/athletic/study space for their students, not to provide retail for the average Boston resident, just saying.

There aren't going to be many "average Boston residents" on the stretch of Comm. Ave much beyond Kenmore. BU is pretty much it. Except maybe on game days or before and after other campus activities or alumni/prospective student events.

I think the realistic possibility is that they could decide that Kenmore should be more like Kendall or Harvard Square and they develop their Kenmore facing parking lot and old hotel into something that could bring in more ground level restaurant/retail and possibly bring in some other businesses above ground floor. Having a surface lot in Kenmore Square is clearly not their end game.

Further down Comm. Ave we are just talking about what kind of businesses can work on a large college campus

 

[TomOfBoston]

And you come across like someone who uses ad hominem in lieu of having an actual counter argument. Because that's what you did.

If the poster sounds like a bitter reject I will call him out. If you want retail go to Copley Square and shut up.

 

[underground]

That's a pretty hot take.

 

[Downburst]

If you want retail go to Copley Square and shut up.

Because an island of commerce in a sea of indifferent land use and streetscape is a system we really want to emulate.

If universities aren't going to pay taxes or make the "suggested donation" that the city asks of them each year, then the least they can do is make their built environment active and pleasant.

 

[Shepard]

I ask somewhat rhetorically: But who lives and works along this stretch of Comm that isn't associated with BU?

If BU owns every building along this part of Comm Ave, then I'd psychology cede this area to BU and not care a lick what they do or don't do with retail. So to me, the first step is actually questioning how and why BU should control nearly every building and bed along this stretch.

Thought experiment: Goodyear Tires is redeveloped into a non-BU residential tower like Stuvi2. That alone changes the dynamic along Comm Ave more than any coffee shop or bike store.

 

[whighlander]

All -- there's a need for both inclusion and exclusion of the city in an urban campus

I'm not much of a believer in having miscellaneous shops and restaurants within academic, or even residential buildings -- for a number of reasons

For academic, research and residences -- you need security and restricted access as for example:

• there are often pieces of equipment temporarily in the hallway which might be worth millions of dollars
• there may be potentially valuable intellectual property scribbled on a white board
• unfortunately these days the students, particularly the women, are at risk of physical assault

On the other hand in the case of a campus fully embedded in the city such as BU or Northeastern -- you are embedded in the city

Student Centers, art galleries, athletic facilities and other venues often frequented by the general public should not be different from their non-university counterparts -- they should welcome the city into their midst

Certainly on the main streets, such as Comm Ave, there should also be city surrounding you -- there should be ordinary retail and food shops and ordinary offices and even residential uses -- even in buildings owned by the university

While not a strictly urban campus, I think MIT does a quite good job in allowing normal commerce to exist on its fringes even in buildings that it owns. Increasingly the northern edge of MIT from Mass Ave @ Main to Main @ Mem Dr. is mind-melding with the non-university research entities seamlessly. There still needs to be more integration with the non-university-non-research commerce -- but I think that is coming in the Kendall Initiative

from
http://news.mit.edu/2015/kendall-square-global-center-innovation-grows-alongside-mit-0507

Kendall Square: A global center for innovation grows alongside MIT
Once lined with old factories and abandoned buildings, Kendall Square is now a global center for innovation.
Liz Karagianis | MIT Spectrum
May 7, 2015

President John F. Kennedy wanted to build NASA’s Electronics Research Center in Kendall Square. It opened in 1964 but closed five years later because of budget cuts. “That left this big void, so MIT then partnered with the City of Cambridge to advance plans to revitalize Kendall Square,” says Provost Martin Schmidt, co-chair of the MIT Building Committee, which now has big plans to further develop this booming innovation cluster.
“Kendall Square is the epicenter, but the reach is all around the edge of campus,” Schmidt says, adding that with the input of hundreds, a plan has been designed to create “a gateway” and “a sense of destination” in Kendall Square, so that when you rise up out of the subway, it will be visibly clear that you’ve entered the MIT campus.
Soon to come, he says, will be academic space, graduate dormitories, a childcare center, and the new home of the MIT Museum. Also slated over the next decade is innovation space, high-rise housing, retail and commercial space, all with landscaping and underground parking. “We see it as an opportunity to further enliven the area. It will become a place to go, rather than a place just to walk through,” says Schmidt, who has co-founded or co-invented the core technology for six start-up companies.

This all took time -- 50 years to be precise

BU is really just starting to develop the kind of street-cred that will lead to opportunities in the next few years to re-make Comm Ave particularly at Kenmore into a more-valued urban center and less of just a bunch of pizza shops next to a bunch of students

 

[The EGE]

Recent BU graduate here (and I don't exactly fit the coddled never-left-campus mold). That street-level retail is essential and made living there much more pleasant. Even if an area is primarily controlled by a university, that doesn't mean that it should be a featureless wall of academic buildings. Most of the students that I knew at BU went there because it felt like it was in a city, not because it was a walled enclave.

Every major university has an issue of the administration being disconnected from the student body, but I believe BU's is worse than average. They fundamentally do not understand or do not care about streetlife (especially after 8pm), classroom space quality, or transportation, even though those are pressing issues for many students. The administration likes buildings with massive streetwalls and more dollars coming in from dining plans and residential towers without direct street entrances. Don't think it's the students that want Comm Ave to be a retail dead zone.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

If the poster sounds like a bitter reject I will call him out. If you want retail go to Copley Square and shut up.

Wait, who sounds bitter?

 

[odurandina]

there's always the iconic 'University Center' expericence like UC Irvine.

 

[TomOfBoston]

Wait, who sounds bitter?

Matthew

Post 1404

 

[Jrubbs]

Wow. If I were told when I was an undergrad there 15 years ago that it was BU's explicit job to shelter me 100% of the time around only students my age so I never ever encountered people different from me...I would've picked a different school entirely or transferred the fuck out of there. Who chooses to go to school at a supposedly borderless campus in the middle of the city when the entirety of the non- BU-sanctioned parts of the city is hidden behind curtains???


Again, you are starting from an assumption that present-day conditions were eternal and that ground-floor retail is some sort of burden on them. That is not true at all. They initiated the change by chasing out the ground-floor retail that used to be along Comm Ave. as little as a few years ago. The Charles River Campus thrived just fine for the whole of the second half of the 20th century intermixed with independent retail.

So answer the question: why is it BU's obligation to evict ground-floor retail? Are they enrolling some more virulent strain of Ritalin kids for the Class of 2020 who are in need of way more sensory deprivation than the Class of 2012 who turned out just fine?

Like I said originally, I am for retail here, I just don't see it as a real problem if we don't get any.

 

[dwash59]

You come across as a bitter BU applicant who was rejected.

The last I checked, Matthew has a PhD from BU, so I find this a bit funny.

More to the point, I think this topic has largely consisted of BU Alumni saying they want more retail along this stretch, and people who didn't attend BU saying campuses shouldn't have retail.

Trust me when I say there are BU alumni that are also complaining to the administration about them removing retail and their failure to liven up Comm Ave. I also know there are faculty complaining about the scarcity of food choices in Central Campus to take visitors to for working lunches.

 

[TomOfBoston]

The last I checked, Matthew has a PhD from BU, so I find this a bit funny.

More to the point, I think this topic has largely consisted of BU Alumni saying they want more retail along this stretch, and people who didn't attend BU saying campuses shouldn't have retail.

I have a master's degree from BU.

 

[Matthew]

The last I checked, Matthew has a PhD from BU, so I find this a bit funny.

Yup. Worked at the Charles River Campus for many, many years.

Irony is that I somehow ended up Cambridge University, which manages to be even worse at fostering street life than Boston University, if you are unlucky enough to be stationed at one of the satellite campuses outside the centre.

 

[FK4]

There aren't going to be many "average Boston residents" on the stretch of Comm. Ave much beyond Kenmore. BU is pretty much it. Except maybe on game days or before and after other campus activities or alumni/prospective student events.

I think the realistic possibility is that they could decide that Kenmore should be more like Kendall or Harvard Square and they develop their Kenmore facing parking lot and old hotel into something that could bring in more ground level restaurant/retail and possibly bring in some other businesses above ground floor. Having a surface lot in Kenmore Square is clearly not their end game.

Further down Comm. Ave we are just talking about what kind of businesses can work on a large college campus

As someone who grew up in Brookline and oppose what BU has done, I can tell you that the frequenters of the retail along that stretch heavily included me and my friends when we were growing up, as well as the many, many people who live in the adjoining stretch of Brookline. Many of the places that I used to go have been shuttered by BU. I don't know why anyone bothers arguing against the fact that BU needs to change its tune re local color and retail. It's so clearly a net benefit for the school, and for the community at large.