Harvard - Allston Campus

[stellarfun]

Harvard will halt construction of the Science Complex once it gets to grade, and the halt looks to last perhaps upwards of five or more years.

No information on whether Harvard and Charlesview will also delay construction of the replacement for the Charlesview apartments. From a cost-benefit standpoint, spending a large amount of money repairing the existing units to last another five or ten years might not be a wise investment.

No information either on any delay in reconstructing and expanding the Fogg Art Museum complex in Cambridge, nor on the planned $1 billion, multi-year renovation of the undergraduate residential houses in Cambridge.

I am guessing that Harvard would continue to acquire property on the north side of Western Ave. contiguous to what it currently owns, and almost surely would buy the WBZ studios on Soldiers Field Road if CBS would sell, and then lease it back.

Other than Charlesview, I don't see any new Harvard buildings appearing in Allston until 2016-2018 at the earliest. The exception might be the Business School, which has its own endowment kitty and resource stream, and might proceed to construct a building or two. (The other schools slated to move to Allston are the School of Public Health from Longwood, and the Graduate School of Education from Cambridge.)

Harvard will slow the pace of construction on its new Allston campus, President Drew Faust announced today.

Construction crews already at work on the first science building there will complete the foundation and installation of below-ground structural beams, tasks that were supposed to take up most of 2009 and are continuing on pace. But Harvard will hold back on procuring materials for anything above ground, Christopher M. Gordon, chief operating officer of the Allston Development Group, said in a conference call with journalists this afternoon.

Meanwhile, the University will conduct a thorough review of the project?s overall scope and pace. The options, Faust said in her statement, include proceeding as originally planned (if economic conditions improve rapidly); reconfiguring the building ?in ways that yield either new cost savings or new space realization?; and pausing construction completely.

The building has thus far been discussed in large, round numbers?1 million square feet, $1 billion. Faust declined, during the conference call, to offer more detail about those numbers and how they might change in the cost options being considered, but she did say that increasing the first science building?s square footage is one of those options.

Meanwhile, with that building?s opening date possibly delayed, entities that were supposed to be housed there?including the interfaculty department of stem-cell and regenerative biology and the new Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering?will be moving into space in Cambridge and Longwood instead.

Faust emphasized that whatever happens with the building later this year, Harvard is not pulling back from the Allston project altogether. ?Harvard?s 50-year vision for Allston is undiminished, regardless of these short-term challenges,? she said in a statement. ?Allston is vital to Harvard?s long-term future.?

Faust estimated that the endowment has lost 30 percent of its value since it peaked at $36.9 billion last June 30.

She noted that the Harvard Corporation has delayed its announcement of the endowment distribution amount for next year (traditionally done each fall), citing the high level of economic uncertainty. But $1.4 billion is due to be distributed for operating expenses this year?and that amount, she said, is 50 percent higher than the distribution the last time the endowment stood at its current value (about $26 billion, using Faust?s rough calculation).

Faust announced the Allston decision on the same day she released a letter to the Harvard community summing up other University cost-cutting measures, including a retirement incentive and a salary freeze for non-union workers. The president wrote:

It is our collective obligation to face the situation with the right balance of short-term focus and long-term ambition, for ourselves and for the generations whose opportunities will be shaped by our choices.​

​

http://harvardmagazine.com/breaking-news/harvard-to-slow-pace-of-construction-in-allston

Harvard To Delay Allston Construction

Economic slowdown causes University to reevaluate expansion plans

Published On 2/19/2009 2:37:36 AM

By JUNE Q. WU and PETER F. ZHU

Crimson Staff Writers


Harvard will slow construction on its much-touted Allston Science Complex for the remainder of the year due to financial pressures and an unprecedented drop in the endowment, University President Drew G. Faust announced yesterday.

While the science complex?s foundation will be completed at a slower pace by the end of the year, Faust said University planners would conduct a detailed cost analysis to determine at the end of 2009 whether to proceed with current construction plans, reconfigure the building to cut costs, or halt work entirely.

The science complex?a core component of the University?s ambitious plans to build a new campus across the Charles River?was heralded as a hub for interdisciplinary science, originally due to be completed in 2011.

The University will temporarily house the building?s planned tenants?the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, a University bioengineering institute, and the Medical School?s systems biology department?in alternative renovated spaces in Cambridge and Longwood.

The announcement comes amidst what Faust called ?the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? and follows months of University deliberation over its operating expenses and capital projects. Harvard has asked schools to institute a salary freeze for faculty and non-union staff and recently announced that it would offer some staff over the age of 55 buyout packages in an effort to reduce costs.

The slowdown will result in a halt in procurement of materials for future construction phases, as well as a possible reduction in the number of workers on-site towards the end of the year, according to University spokeswoman Lauren M. Marshall.

Faust added Harvard will also slow planning for the rest of its Allston construction?which has been slated to occur over a 50-year time span. She said that Harvard will deliver on its previously agreed-upon community benefits, as well as ?develop options for interim improvements to [its] existing properties??which some local residents say Harvard has left undeveloped to Allston?s detriment.

Harry Mattison, an Allston resident and a member of the Harvard Allston Task Force, said he was wary of Faust?s overtures in the letter.

?If Faust says they?re going to do a better job this year, I?ll look forward to seeing that,? Mattison said. ?But the proof will be in the pudding. Right now it?s just words on a page.?

He added that he has not been pleased ?with Harvard going on a buying binge? for property, and that Harvard has thus far ?failed miserably to attract new businesses? for Allston.

But other task force members said the slowdown in construction may offer a rare opportunity for planners to sort through a queue of community concerns that have been overshadowed by the science complex?s construction. City officials had accelerated approval for the science complex construction plans after University officials said the unique and urgent research being conducted in areas such as stem cell biology merited a faster timeline.

?We got rushed into a lot of these agendas because of the timetable being set for [the science complex],? said Ray Mellone, chair of the task force. ?But if that slows down, it gives us more time to deal with [community concerns]. We need a little bit of a breather, and that?s what we?re going to get.?

Meanwhile, those programs originally planning for a 2011 move to Allston have been scrambling to find temporary housing in existing University facilities.

The Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, which had been informed by University administrators in January that it might need to reconsider its Allston plans, has decided to move first into vacant office space in the Northwest building and eventually to a renovated Sherman-Fairchild building, according to department co-chair David T. Scadden.

?I?m hoping this isn?t going to be too disruptive for my colleagues,? Scadden said.

Scadden said he expects his department to relocate to Fairchild by 2011 at the latest.

?Having a single geographic home?that will be a big step forward for us,? Scadden said, adding that it would be a marked improvement from the department?s current quarters.

The recently chartered Wyss Institute for bioengineering will move its laboratories into now empty floors in the Harvard Institute of Medicine Building within the next two months, while the systems biology department will remain in Longwood, according to the programs? administrators.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526634

 

[stellarfun]

Harvard slows work on Allston complex

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | February 19, 2009

Harvard University is putting the brakes on its landmark plans to remake an industrial slice of Allston into a sprawling new campus, President Drew Faust announced yesterday, in the clearest sign yet of the impact the recession is having on the world's wealthiest university.

Construction on a massive $1 billion science complex will slow and perhaps halt altogether for an undetermined period if the university's financial picture does not improve, Faust said. Harvard plans to finish the foundation and bring the structure to ground level this calendar year, but may not be able to complete the complex by the planned 2011 opening, she said, raising concern among neighbors that the site could sit abandoned for years.

"Although long-term planning for other Allston development will continue, it will occur at a slower pace, and our broader plans for developing the Allston campus are delayed," Faust wrote in a letter to the Allston community.

Faust made the announce ment as Harvard's endowment, which was once valued at $36.9 billion and covers more than a third of the university's $3.5 billion operating budget, is projected to plummet 30 percent for 2008-2009.

"Such a significant decrease presents us with difficult trade-offs," Faust wrote in a separate letter to the Harvard community yesterday. ". . . Tinkering around the edges will not be enough. What is more, our conscious avoidance of 'one size fits all' solutions means that not everyone is going to be happy with every outcome."

Work so far on the 589,000-square-foot science complex currently amounts to a giant hole in the ground. Faust acknowledged in an interview that any delay could cost the university more in the future, depending on the price of building materials. But the university needs the money it would save on construction for its operating costs.
"Right now, we are facing a very strained financial situation, and we're trying to manage our way through that," she said.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who spoke with Faust Tuesday about Allston's future, said heis disappointed but understands the need for the slowdown.

"It's the prudent thing to do at this time," Menino said. "Even Harvard, which everyone knows is the wealthiest university, is having issues financially. It's very important that you face reality."

Faust, who once compared Harvard's Cambridge-Allston relationship to the left and right banks of the Seine River in Paris, had warned previously of the possibility of a slowdown in developing Harvard's more than 350 acres in Allston.

In recent weeks, the university began lining up contingency plans for scientists who were to be housed in the Allston science complex. But yesterday's announcement was the first official word addressing specifics about Allston's immediate future.

The science complex, touted as the cornerstone of Harvard's presence in Allston, was planned to bring together under one roof researchers from the Medical School, the School of Engineering, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It was to house the university's new department of stem cell and regenerative biology and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, as well as the new Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Those highly acclaimed initiatives will be located elsewhere, Faust said.

The Stem Cell Institute and department will move to renovated laboratory space on Harvard's Cambridge campus. The Wyss Institute will go to the Longwood medical campus and the Cambridge campus. In the interview yesterday, Faust said it remains unclear when and if they will relocate to Allston.

Doug Melton, codirector of the Stem Cell Institute, said that scientists in the stem cell and regenerative biology department will be moving to renovated lab space in Cambridge in the fall, sooner than they would have been able to move into the Allston science complex. That will make it easier for the department to launch its new undergraduate major. His long-term hope, though, remains in Allston.

"In terms of convening in a brand new building, this is a slowdown, if not a setback," Melton said. "But on the research side, things are going extremely well, and this won't slow us at all. It's not like we've been waiting to do experiments."

Allston residents have already voiced frustration about the vacant Harvard-owned lots and buildings dotting their neighborhood. Now they are bracing for an undetermined length of construction before Harvard fulfills its long-term vision of meandering pathways, parks, other academic buildings, and arts and cultural spaces.

"As a community, we have accepted living alongside all of Harvard's vacant buildings and abandoned property for almost 10 years now," said Harry Mattison, a member of the Harvard Allston Task Force. "You can suck it up and take it when you think it'll be a couple more years and all the watercolor drawings and pretty pictures will come true. But now this is what I may be looking at for the rest of my life."

Faust said that she has spoken with the heads of the task force to update them on Harvard's plans and that a university official hand-delivered a letter yesterday to the rest of the group outlining the plans. Harvard plans to consult the Allston community in upcoming weeks on how to make the best use of its properties in the interim.

"It's a difficult situation for everyone," Faust said during the interview. "We want to do our very best to be a good neighborhood in circumstances we didn't anticipate and in circumstances we wish we didn't have to face."

The university will also explore ways to reduce the construction cost of the science complex through design changes, Faust said. The building was to be the first of two science complexes, but that second facility is on indefinite hold.

Harvard has already frozen the salaries for faculty and non-union staff and made a voluntary early retirement offer to 1,600 staff members to trim its operating budget.

"No less than before, what we do in Allston remains a vital part of Harvard's future," Faust wrote. "While the economic downturn necessitates a change of pace, we remain committed to a long-term vision of Allston that will take full advantage of the historic opportunity it represents."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma.../02/19/harvard_slows_work_on_allston_complex/

 

[kz1000ps]

Quite the skyline:

 

[ablarc]

Well, the "Community" can rest easy now; their paradise of parking lots, broken concrete and industrial decrepitude will be preserved another couple of decades.

 

[czsz]

But won't they still be throwing "community meetings" to demand/extort their street cleaning money from Harvard?

 

[stellarfun]

Dread is rising in Harvard's hole

As work slows, acres of blight worry Allston

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | February 23, 2009
Allston residents still cling to the watercolor images Harvard has dangled before them over the years. Bike paths leading to the Charles River. A canopy of trees shading wide sidewalks lined with cafes, boutiques, and theaters. Neighbors congregating by public art installations, gardens, and spraying fountains.

Harvard, with its deep pockets, residents believed, would help transform their industrial neighborhood into something akin to bustling, iconic Harvard Square in Cambridge.

But last week's announcement that the wealthy university would dramatically slow - and possibly halt - its expansion across the river as it copes with the recession has cast a long shadow over Allston's future and left many residents forlorn, their dreams of brighter years ahead dashed.

"Harvard just holds out these images like a mirage in the desert," said Harry Mattison, an Allston resident and member of a neighborhood planning task force. "There's this continual visual that this wonderful renaissance for the neighborhood is just around the corner, but it could be decades of looking at all the blight."

More than 10 years after Harvard announced sweeping plans to expand its campus into Allston, the neighborhood remains a hodgepodge of empty lots, storefronts, and buildings used for back-office operations - all owned by Harvard. The university bought up swaths of prop erty now totaling more than 350 acres. As it prepared for future development and tenants began to leave, Harvard sucked the vitality out of pockets of Allston, residents say.

During a tour of university-owned property last fall, Kevin McCluskey, a Harvard liaison to the Allston community, waved toward a squat brick building that now houses the central pastry kitchen for Finale, a local dessert chain started by Harvard Business School graduates.

"This is one of the great business entrepreneurial success stories," McCluskey exclaimed. "Here they are!"

Residents lament that Finale's Allston operation has no bakery shop or restaurant. That may come in the future, McCluskey said, but right now, "there's no foot traffic."

Exactly.

The Volkswagen dealership around the corner on Western Avenue recently moved to Watertown because Harvard said it needed the space. Also gone: a dry cleaner, a used-car dealership, a pet store/animal hospital, and a Kmart and Office Max that once did brisk business in a Harvard-owned strip mall now devoid of most of its tenants.

"This is what we have now, another empty, rotting building," Mattison said. "Harvard has a stranglehold on commercial real estate."

A short walk away, a 5-acre crater gapesat the site of an old Pepsi warehouse, where Harvard's highly acclaimed science complex was to open in 2011. It was touted as the first piece of a 50-year plan for Allston that symbolized the launch of one of the largest construction projects Boston would see for decades. The building would bring in 1,000 construction jobs, university officials promised, half of which would go to Boston residents.

The structure was intended to house scientists who would find cures for deadly diseases, host the world's largest stem cell facility, and advance Boston's biotechnology and life sciences industry. Now, it could be many more years before the building is finished.

Longtime residents say this is a first: the prospect that construction already underway might be halted. With that grim possibility in mind, residents are bracing for potentially years of disruption and their neighborhood looking like an eyesore.

Residents, also complaining about an increase in rats they say is a result of the science complex construction, will meet with Harvard officials tonight at the local library about the future of their neighborhood.

Unlike most neighborhoods immersed in town-gown battles, many Allston residents want Harvard to develop there. They say they don't have much choice if they want life injected back into their community, which some say has become a wasteland.

For now, though, it seems to them that the university is not developing, but land banking.

Last month, Harvard announced that it had purchased a building that houses a machine shop,without plans for its use. McCluskey said Harvard rents out approximately 85 percent of its leasable properties and is actively marketing them, even in this tough economic climate.

To be fair, Mattison said, he understands Harvard's new financial limitations. The university has tried to make good on its promises to Allston, sprucing up the neighborhood with new trees, sidewalks, and grassy fields where asphalt truck lots once sprawled. But he would like to work with Harvard to make further improvements if construction comes to a standstill.

On Friday morning, dozens of pedestrians hurried through a busy intersection known as Barry's Corner. It's where town meets gown, a short walk down North Harvard Street from the university's historic football stadium and down Western Avenue from the Harvard Business School.

John Eskew, an Allston resident, passes a series of vacant buildings and lots each morning on the way to his software engineering job in Central Square. Friday, he walked past an empty Citgo gas station, the shell of the former Volkswagen dealership, and orange cranes towering above theyawning hole that is the intended site of the science complex - far from the picturesque public square depicted in Harvard's plans.

"It would be nice to see the empty properties filled with something that brings life to the neighborhood," said Eskew, who worries that a slowdown in completing the science complex will mean further delays in finding tenants for Harvard's buildings.

In the meantime, residents, fearing abandonment, savor the small signs of Harvard's commitment to Allston: improvements to local playgrounds, the handicap ramp at St. Anthony's church, the weekly farmer's market - all subsidized by the university.

They've taken note of the personal appearances made by Harvard's president, Drew Faust - at a summer barbecue in asoon-to-be-developed park behind the public library built on Harvard-provided land, and at a ribbon-cutting for a neighborhood complex where Harvard students tutor local children.

Perhaps this is all residents can hope for in the near future.

"A lot of people think Harvard could be the goose that lays the golden egg, and now they see Harvard as reneging," said Ray Mellone, chairman of the Harvard Allston Task Force who has lived in the neighborhood for 73 years. "But Harvard can't wave a magic wand over everything and make it all happy for everyone."

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/23/dread_is_rising_in_harvards_hole/

 

[Ron Newman]

The least Harvard could do is to offer to re-rent commercial properties to tenants who they kicked out earlier. Would Kmart and OfficeMax like to return, for instance? Or could the strip-mall otherwise be repopulated with stores that the neighborhood would use?

 

[stellarfun]

The least Harvard could do is to offer to re-rent commercial properties to tenants who they kicked out earlier. Would Kmart and OfficeMax like to return, for instance? Or could the strip-mall otherwise be repopulated with stores that the neighborhood would use?

The strip mall, or a large part of it, is where the re-located Charlesview housing is to be built.

The problem with rejuvenating this particular strip mall is that but a short drive away for the residents of Allston Brighton are the two malls at the old Watertown Arsenal. There is a large supermarket still there, on the eastern end, and that stays in the Charlesview plan.

 

[pelhamhall]

These neighbors live in the neighborhood they deserve. Their tactic of quite literally extorting money out of Harvard has back-fired on them.

They killed the goose that lays the golden egg.

I agree with Ron though, if Harvard isn't going to use the commercial space they've bought, they should rent or re-purpose it. But then of course the neighbors will want their say in that, who will rent what and where...

and Harvard will have to pay for lawyers and consultants and PR folks, and host yet more community meetings... and Harvard probably is saying to themselves after all this: "f---- these people. Enough is enough."

If a neighborhood as a whole is mobilized and becomes activist anti-development, then nobody should complain or be surprised when development ends.

This city needs a Mayor.

 

[Ron Newman]

I don't think Harvard would have to go through a zoning process to replace retail with like retail. And the neighbors probably would appreciate the return of a box retailer of some kind to the vacant strip mall.

 

[underground]

With so much uncertainty surrounding the building (let alone neighborhood) I'm not sure they'd have an easy time finding businesses willing to move in.

 

[jass]

"Harvard just holds out these images like a mirage in the desert," said Harry Mattison, an Allston resident and member of a neighborhood planning task force. "There's this continual visual that this wonderful renaissance for the neighborhood is just around the corner, but it could be decades of looking at all the blight."


Whaaaaaaa?!?

Aren't all the other articles about how terrible the plans are and how nobody wants them?

 

[pelhamhall]

She just admitted her neighborhood is blight. In other quoted articles the neighborhood is lovely and Harvard's plans would ruin it.

I'm glad Harvard shut off their golden faucet. I've been to some of these meetings. The neighbors were always of the mindset "you have billions of dollars, you are so rich, so flush with money, there is no reasonable reason why you can't give us your money"

Millions, literally millions of dollars have been poured into this area already by Harvard. Harvard built a really great library that is the only decent thing in the neighborhood. The neighbors, saddled up to Harvard's buffet, kept demanding more, more, more.

Harvard knows that every single step along the way to building out Lower Allston will be met with this attitude.

Every single request that Harvard ever needs to make will be a shake-down, every single little thing will result in the neighbors calling Harvard names like "elitist" and calls of "why don't you take your billions and fix up the [insert anything and everything here]".

The meetings, year after year of meetings, take their toll on sanity - and the pocketbook. Harvard's lawyers and advisers aren't cheap.

Harvard has decided they are done playing this little game. The economy has given them an "out" and they've taken it. For now. They will return, and when they do, I would hope it's on their terms.

 

[Ron Newman]

One could argue that the neighborhood was marginally blighted before Harvard came in, but became much more so after Harvard emptied out business blocks and tore down buildings. I see both sides of this issue.

If Harvard wants to be a good neighbor they should make a conscientious attempt to mitigate the damages caused by increased vacancy... something that would also help Harvard's finances by bringing in rent income.

 

[pelhamhall]

I agree with you Ron, and what you're saying is absolute, 100% common sense. When you mix Boston neighborhood politics with ivy league elitism, common sense exits stage right.

I think if Harvard is serious about waiting this out for at least five years, you'll see the "For Lease" signs - that will be the tell-tale sign on their next steps.

If they are just waiting out this current recession for the next 2 or 3 years (or longer God forbid) then sadly there is nothing they can do but wait. You can't lease space for two years then go through the PR nightmare of evicting the tenants all over again.

I would argue that most of the buildings Harvard bought did nothing to bring life to the area - the VW dealer, the tv studios, etc. The Brighton Mills shopping Center is the only example of "life" that Harvard has "killed"

And Harvard has a fantastic plan for that site, that the neighbors were hoping to milk more cash out of. They didn't know a good thing when they saw it. Not a perfect thing. Not the best thing ever. Just a good thing. Now they have nothing at all, and I can't say I feel terribly bad for them, although it is a shitty situation altogether.

 

[Ron Newman]

Could the area be made into a temporary business incubator? The whole idea of an incubator is that businesses succeed in outgrowing it and move elsewhere.

It strikes me that this situation could be a useful outlet for the creative energies of both (adjoining) Harvard Business School and the Graduate School of Design (architecture).

 

[GW2500]

Ok so the school the last year was sitting on 36 billion (untaxed) might stand to loose 30%. So now they are sitting on 25 Billion (untaxed). And they can?t complete the $1 Billion project which is already millions of dollars into it. I know they run their operations off the interest of their endowment, but they also do charge $45k a year. Seem?s to me it would be better to have a billion dollar facility then just watch that $1billion shrink in size with the rest of their endowment. Plus leaving it in limbo isn?t free either.

 

[Ron Newman]

I'm a little curious whether removing WGBH from the neighborhood made the difference between profitability and not, for some surrounding convenience stores, restaurants, and the like.

 

[pelhamhall]

I like all these ideas, Ron. It's a frustrating situation I'm sure for everyone involved and there is no easy answer. Timing is a bitch. When times are good everyone wants to shake the money tree, and sometimes there's nothing left when times go bad.

I've worked in real estate marketing and PR for many years, so I read stories like this (stories that are announcement-driven, meaning the news is self-breaking as opposed to being uncovered via a third party) as a PR scheme, scam, stunt... What's really behind this announcement? Why was it announced that way? Why was it announced at this time? What are the implications behind it?

To me, Harvard is going around asking alumni to donate money to their school saying that they are hurting badly right now.

To be spending a few billion on fancy new buildings while you have the tin cup out is bad taste.

Simultaneously, the Lower Allston neighbors and political hacks have been playing school yard bullies to Harvard's nerd. You should see the condescending dynamic in these meetings... the bullies are mad at the nerd and calling the nerd names, pushing him around, all because the nerd studies hard, has facts and figures, is new town - and has money. This announcement is a signal to the bullies that there might not be any lunch money to steal if they don't start behaving themselves.

We can't fathom how sitting on $20B could be a crisis, but it really truly is - it means a different way of running things and a new reality when your budgets are based on $30B in endowment interest. Harvard's operating budget is in crisis mode at the moment. With $20B in the bank!

 

[stellarfun]

Google street view is sufficiently old that it gives a perspective of the buildings that Harvard demolished to clear the land for Science Complex.

These properties are not that different from the buildings that Harvard owns on the north side of western Ave, west of N. Harvard St. For the most part, the buildings, and the businesses housed in them, are light industrial and commercial.

At Barry's Corner, there is a small block on the eastern side that is sometimes characterized as the Keystone Block. It is the site best suited for a building housing retail and community-oriented businesses. However, Harvard does not yet own all the property that makes up the site.

It does not own this cleaners, nor this apartment house.

It did buy this gas station, and close it. Last I was there, Harvard had placed large planters around the periphery.

(Behind the cleaners is a building that Harvard has leased to the pastry company, which has declined to open a retail shop because of a lack of foot traffic.)

I don't think Harvard can or should be so presumptuous to start proposing and designing a building to be constructed on land it does not yet own.

As I recall the community opposition to the first building that Harvard proposed for Barry's Corner -- an art gallery and art storage facility/workshop -- among the objections were those of abutting neighbors complaining that gallery visitors would be able to peer into their back yards, and a larger community complaint that the building itself was not grand enough to put in Allston if Harvard was serious about having Barry's Corner be a cultural center. (The building site was formerly a fair-sized Verizon garage.)

Currently the commercial life at Barry's Corners consists of a Dunkin Donuts, a 7-11, and a gas station, all operating on land that Harvard does not own. Not the set of establishments that would tend to be a community destination.