BU Development Thread

And why oh why do they still use those awful 2 story buildings on Cummington Street. They are an embarrassment.
 
I'd say what BU has done right fairly recently is:

1) West Campus north side of Comm Ave. John Hancock village/Agganis flows with Nickerson Field and dorms there and then over to the lacrosse field/tennis center/softball field.

2) Metcalf Science area. Graduate school dorms, new science center, etc.

3) Comm ave redo.

4) Law school addition/renovation and the rest of Bay State road (alumni center)

What needs work:

1) Central campus is awful. Too many parking lots and repurposed gas stations and whatever the academy building used to be. I believe BU wants to cut off that Storrow Drive access ramp which would be nice but otherwise they need to get building over here now that the new overpass work is wrapping up. Really though they could blow up from St. Mary's St to Essex St on the south side of Comm ave and I wouldn't miss a thing. New library was supposed to go where CVS is. New law school was going to go where academy is. Time for Plan B people.

2) Cummington St as well although at least that's hidden. BU did purchase the street from the city so I wonder what the plan is here.

3) Get rid of those stupid tire places across from Agganis. Does any other school have this on campus? Yes, I get 100 years ago Comm Ave was the turn of the century's version of the auto mile but if Ellis the Rim Man can go, so too can those places.

4) Kenmore square area. Good job with food court but fill in parking lot in front and lose the HoJo's.
 
I will add:

Stop pouring millions of dollars into CFA building renovations. It is like putting lipstick on a pig. It is butt ugly. A new CFA building is needed.
 
TomOfBoston said:
I will add:

Stop pouring millions of dollars into CFA building renovations. It is like putting lipstick on a pig. It is butt ugly. A new CFA building is needed.
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CFA needs a proper renovation but not a replacement. It is one of the finest buildings on that stretch of Comm Ave. With a little TLC it wouldn’t be ugly at all.
 
A good stretch of campus is blighted. The entire campus is a head scratcher.

BU has a lot of planning to do.
 
odurandina said:
A good stretch of campus is blighted. The entire campus is a head scratcher.

BU has a lot of planning to do.
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I always thought BU looked better from behind. Only later did I realize that was the point. The campus was supposed to front the park by the river until the state rammed Storrow Drive through it. I'd also point out the Pike wasn't there either when BU moved to its current location.
 
Rover said:
2) Cummington St as well although at least that's hidden. BU did purchase the street from the city so I wonder what the plan is here.
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So far the only discernible plan has been to store a huge pile of mulch at the end of Blandford by the Pike. I get it, I guess -- not many places on that campus to store mulch, so why not buy a city street?

Rover said:
3) Get rid of those stupid tire places across from Agganis. Does any other school have this on campus? Yes, I get 100 years ago Comm Ave was the turn of the century's version of the auto mile but if Ellis the Rim Man can go, so too can those places.
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BU doesn't own any of those and probably won't in the next several decades. They have been owned for more than 20 years by a Brookline developer family that will probably drive a much harder bargain than the City did on its own streets.
 
ErnieAdams said:
BU doesn't own any of those and probably won't in the next several decades. They have been owned for more than 20 years by a Brookline developer family that will probably drive a much harder bargain than the City did on its own streets.
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The school has a billion dollar endowment. Pay their price. Probably the biggest gap in campus in terms of real estate that the school doesn't own.
 
The tire places are physically in Brookline despite fronting Comm Ave., so they're also subject to Brookline zoning and all the hindering strategies Brookline has deployed (some fairly, some unfairly) over the years to keep BU from swallowing a whole corner of their town. Campus redev stops cold at 930 Comm Ave. on the corner of Pleasant St. because that's where the city line starts going up to the physical sidewalk. It doesn't revert back until Winslow Rd. when BU starts playing Allston slumlord at 1056/1066 Comm Ave. (ed: former 1066 tenant who survived a full summer in that rathole!).

The only ugly-ass car place that's on Boston terra firma for them to squeeze is the Mobil station on the corner of Amory with the BU IT center building directly behind it. And that one is most likely another holdout owner playing hard to get for spite.


There are lots of things to criticize BU for re: uneven campus development, but let's not crucify them for blight at properties they don't physically control that reside in another municipality altogether. If squatters wanna squat on their land value forever and Brookline is sympatico with that because it serves their needs at halting BU massing up for invasion at their city line...there's nothing BU can do about it because the lipstick is verboten from trespassing in the pigpen. It is not for lack of effort on the University's part that those parcels on Comm Ave. EB have resisted change for 30+ years and seem set on continuing to do so for years to come.
 
Rover said:
The school has a billion dollar endowment. Pay their price. Probably the biggest gap in campus in terms of real estate that the school doesn't own.
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BU, as far as I am aware, has never had an interest in those buildings and has worked with both the cities of Brookline and Boston to consolidate their real estate holdings rather than to expand them. There is plenty of opportunity for pre-existing redevelopment, including all those BU owned parking lots, that will be the priority before attempting to purchase up more privately owned land adjacent to campus.

The land grab (and small endowment) of Wheelock also gives BU opportunity for expansion with the newly established Fenway campus.
 
The Academy property is a waiting/baiting game to see if MassHighway redoes the 8-headed monster Mountfort/BU Bridge intersection into a compacted single-point intersection with turning lanes to get rid of the lane sprawl and gridlock from being caught between two signal cycles.

The state is keeping the door ajar for coming back and doing that, and if they do the compacting of the distended BU Bridge turn lanes will allow for a full-width sidewalk in front of the Academy commensurate with the next block over, and serve up the land for BU to mass right up against that expanded sidewalk. That's definitely a net gain well worth sitting tight and waiting for, because even if they filled Lot H with something big right this second it would be set awkwardly further back from the street and have to be fronted by that godawful squished sidewalk and pure-chaos U Rd./BU Bridge crosswalks...so it's never going to mesh as elegantly with the street as 808 on the opposite corner.

That's one where if the intersection fix is in still in a back-and-forth negotiation state it is MUCH worth waiting for a final road design before turning loose an architectural concept for the parcel. Even if it takes till the mid-20's for that to come to pass. Centrally located anchor parcels aren't easy to come by. Would you rather they shiv it off-center onto one of the city's worst FAIL intersections now and have it be a forever square-peg fit with serious access downsides...or try to coax the intersection fix first then get the redev really right? With no second chances, I'd rather they pull out all the stops to get it really right.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The only ugly-ass car place that's on Boston terra firma for them to squeeze is the Mobil station on the corner of Amory with the BU IT center building directly behind it. And that one is most likely another holdout owner playing hard to get for spite.
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No, this is Brookline too. Everything on the south side of Comm. Ave. starting at #730 (the former Radio Shack) and going to #1050 (the new Landry's location) is in Brookline, and then the town line ducks back behind all of the Comm. Ave. buildings and stays there until it peels off through one of the Herb Chambers back alleys.

The upshot is that Booth and all of that related work was 100% in Brookline. The town will play ball with BU to the extent that it gets a proportionate seat at the table for all things master plan-related that cross over into its territory. As you and bdurden both point out, these tire parcels have never been on the table and would necessarily be prioritized well below the parcels that are a part of BU's actual long-term vision.

bdurden said:
The land grab (and small endowment) of Wheelock also gives BU opportunity for expansion with the newly established Fenway campus.
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Don't forget that BU also picked up 43 Hawes Street on the Longwood Mall when it took over Wheelock. It was the home of Hebrew College from the 50s until Wheelock bought it and gut renovated it in 2000. I suppose they could just continue to use it for the School of Education just how Wheelock was using it, but I'm on pins and needles waiting to see whether they will announce any other plans and whether they will incur the wrath of their extremely well resourced neighbors by doing so.
 
ErnieAdams said:
Don't forget that BU also picked up 43 Hawes Street on the Longwood Mall when it took over Wheelock. It was the home of Hebrew College from the 50s until Wheelock bought it and gut renovated it in 2000. I suppose they could just continue to use it for the School of Education just how Wheelock was using it, but I'm on pins and needles waiting to see whether they will announce any other plans and whether they will incur the wrath of their extremely well resourced neighbors by doing so.
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There was discussion of 43 Hawes being sold off to a private owner. I don't know if that is still on the table. The BU Maps have been updated to include the Fenway Campus, however 43 Hawes is not recognized: https://www.bu.edu/maps/
 
^Thanks, that's what I was looking at, but right now I only see that they have the Family Theatre building in their directory, and then only by searching for it. None of the other Riverway buildings seem to be included just yet, and nothing in that area is outlined in red. The pin that says "Boston University Fenway Campus" is on Google Maps regardless.
 
ErnieAdams said:
^Thanks, that's what I was looking at, but right now I only see that they have the Family Theatre building in their directory, and then only by searching for it. None of the other Riverway buildings seem to be included just yet, and nothing in that area is outlined in red. The pin that says "Boston University Fenway Campus" is on Google Maps regardless.
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I stand corrected. It does appear in the updated directory: http://www.bu.edu/meetatbu/files/2018/07/11x17_BU-Fenway-Campus-Map_June28.pdf
 
Good find, thanks! I wonder how they plan to work that new BU shuttle stop into their existing network. It seems pretty well out of the way of the existing loop between the CRC and the South End.
 
I'll bet none of you are aware of this.

Circa 1980 BU announced plans to build a 40 story academic tower on the site of the BU Academy. There was a story in the Boston Globe showing a picture of John Silber standing next to a model of the building. I have searched the internet to no avail for information on this proposed building. If anyone has access to the Boston Globe or Daily Free Press you may want to look for the stories about it. Obviously it never became a reality.
 
There was also a plan to relocate the Law school to the academy site and to (gasp) tear down Sert’s tower. Luckily, saner heads prevailed.
 
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