Harvard - Allston Campus

Wow, what an undignified life that building has led. Funny considering how dignified--and memorable--of a face it presents to the Turnpike.
 
stellarfun said:
I believe the Skating Club owns the land on which the motel (just to the east of the Skating Club) is; I suspect, but don't know for sure, that was included in the swap as well.
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Harvard will also acquire the adjacent 1234 Soldiers Field Road property, currently owned by The Skating Club of Boston, where the Days Hotel will continue to operate under an existing long-term lease.
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http://www.scboston.org/press-relea...ld-class-skating-facility-in-allston-brighton
 
Harry Mattison has this rendering on his blog, but I don't know where he got it from. http://allston02134.blogspot.com/

skatecluballston.jpg


The architect is Architectural Resources Cambridge.

Article in today's Herald with picture of the current Skating club building.
http://www.bostonherald.com/busines...d_club_ice_rink_dealgoes/srvc=home&position=5

I know Harvard announced a one year moratorium on new land acquisition in Cambridge after the endowment tanked, but I guess the one year is over.

Harvard is also supposed to announce future plans for the science complex slab this month.
____________________

While not Allston, Harvard is going to start the reconstruction of its residential houses next year, First house, as a pilot, will be Old Quincy. Cost of all the reconstruction is supposedly in excess of $1 billion.
 
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ewwww, I'd rather they just put offices in that nice-looking existing building. The skating club plan looks suburban as hell.
 
I'm getting a 1991 vibe from the skating center render. It looks like they took a 20 year old PoMo design for a suburban megachurch and threw some corrugated metal on the exterior.
 
I'd love to see the office building used in some way, but they've been trying to fill it for over a decade without success. Such a shame to tear down unused new construction.
 
Where and whatever happened to this? ---Or is this a garbled report on the Allston building?

May 18, 2000 Boston Internet City, a 450,000-sf telecom hotel under construction in Brighton, will be the largest such facility in New England. Carter & Burgess Inc. of Boston, known for its retrofits of older buildings for telecom purposes, is converting a former two-story warehouse above a Macy's store to a three-story facility. The developer is Cabot, Cabot & Forbes of New England Inc.
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http://www.tradelineinc.com/news/BA03AFEB-2C9F-11D4-B72600C0F0483F64

Why the Allston building is truly a white elephant, so special purpose that it can't be easily converted to anything else.

From May 2001.

So what features do telecommunications companies look for in a telecom hotel? As might be expected, they need infrastructure customized for powerful electrical equipment including:
? ceiling heights of 14 feet or higher to accommodate tall racks to hold equipment;
? large metal floor plates that enable floors to support tons of equipment;
? industrial-grade air conditioning systems to cool equipment areas to optimal operating levels;
? high-grade electrical capacity (telecom hotels use 25?30 watts per square foot compared with 5?6 watts per square foot for the average commercial tenant);
? extra power sources, including areas devoted to backup generators (power outages are not acceptable);
? fiber optic lines in or near the building; and
? security to prevent unauthorized access to equipment.

Unlike most commercial buildings, telecom hotels need little parking space because a relatively small number of people work on site. Lobbies also are unnecessary.
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http://recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/1439.pdf

If one Google maps the Allston building, the current lack of parking for a 450,000 sq ft building is simply amazing.

datacenter.jpg


^^^ Decor in a telecom hotel in Dallas.

Love the marketing for the ^^^ facility.

Tristargost's Intel (16) CPU core XEON servers are housed in the SoftLayer Data Center, tier one datacenter facility located inside the well-known INFOMART telecom hotel near downtown Dallas. Specializing in datacenter and hosting facilities, INFOMART is home to multiple datacenters including MCI, Level 3, Equinix, Verio, Switch & Data, Verizon, DataSides, and more. The building sits atop three redundant electrical grids from TXU delivering diverse power to each quadrant of the building. HVAC needs are supplied via five one hundred ton onsite water chillers to deliver N+1 cooling requirements. Home to over twelve switch sites and thirty-five different carriers, INFOMART houses technology and telecom related businesses in a complex communications ecosystem. The data center offers complete redundancy in power, HVAC, fire suppression, network connectivity, and security. SoftLayer is the first true on-demand hosting solution with public and private networks to ensure complete control over the outsourced environment. Comprised of two separate and distinct redundant network architectures, the SoftLayer network-within-the-network design delivers enterprise level hosting services while adding complete management and flexibility to the outsourced environment.
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I don't see how the high ceilings or the (unneeded) extra electrical capacity would make the building unsuitable for office or lab use.
 
Ron Newman said:
I don't see how the high ceilings or the (unneeded) extra electrical capacity would make the building unsuitable for office or lab use.
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I suspect there original designs had bathrooms for only about 20 people, the HVAC was built for big open bay architecture; the floors are so thick that you can't easily run new utilities. Yada yada.

Here is an old CCF under-construction sales brochure for the building, including floorplates.

http://host.web-print-design.com/cabot_cabot_forbes/home.html

Under construction picture:
interior-2-13-01.jpg


Site picture
harvardexpansion2.jpg


From May 24, 2002.
The 444,000-sf Boston Tech Center is being retrofitted as a lab building by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes of New England. Originally designed as a telecommunications hotel, the facility will finish construction as a shell biomedical building and is projected to become a hub for lab companies. The three-story building will house two levels of ground-floor parking to accommodate 650 vehicles. A 40,000-sf glass atrium will be located on the second and third floors. Boston Tech Center is slated for delivery by the end of 2002, when frame, roof, and windows are finished.
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https://www.tradelineinc.com/news/999432DA-17BB-48EE-81D9508733844460

This is probably the same building that this link described as being in Brighton.

And finally, in December 2006,
Harvard?s burgeoning Allston holdings expanded further last month with the purchase of a 5.2 acre property.

The deal for the vacant Boston Tech Center, located behind the Brighton Mills Shopping Center, closed on December 13 for a $16 million price tag.

The Marshall Field Family Trust, which owns the property under the Cabot, Cabot & Forbes name, first approached Harvard as a potential buyer in fall 2006, according to Field Family spokesman Larry Larsen.

The trust purchased the property and began renovations in 2001, looking at the building as a possible life sciences center, Larsen said.

A number of parties expressed interest in the building, including Target Corp. and the now-bankrupt Globix Corp., but the property has been unoccupied since 2001, Larsen said. The Boston Business Journal reported that a possible $22 million sale of the property to Massachusetts-based Eastern Development LLC fell through earlier this summer, leading the company to contact Harvard.

?We tried looking at a variety of strategic transactions and it emerged that Harvard was indeed the best buyer,? Larsen said.

Although the company is unsure of Harvard?s plans for the building, Larsen labeled the purchase a ?smart transaction.?

Others, however, are unsure. Allston Community Task Force member Harry Mattison said he?s worried the building may continue to sit empty. ?We?d like to see it used for anything, almost any sort of use is better than vacant building after vacant building,? he said.

According to Boston Redevelopment Authority project manager Gerald Autler, it is questionable whether or not Harvard will have success in filling the space. ?The property was available for sale because previous attempts to work with biotech tenants had failed,? Autler said.

?I don?t necessarily think Harvard will be any more successful at attracting those tenants than the previous owners.?

Autler also speculated that Harvard?s price was lower than that of previous bidders.

?I would imagine that Harvard got something of a bargain, if anything, simply because the owners were sitting on a piece of property that was costing them money and none of the attempts that they had made to put it to productive use worked out,? Autler said.

Harvard?s goals for the property are uncertain, but Harvard spokeswoman Lauren Marshall said Harvard is currently ?studying options for best uses of the space.?

?We decided to consider this opportunity because of its long-term potential, even though we have no immediate use in mind for the property,? Marshall said.

Although the future of the site is still unclear, Mattison stated that Harvard?s openness in this transaction sets a valuable precedent. ?Communication was good,? he said, ?and it?s what we?d like to see on all future purchases in the neighborhood.?
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http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/1/8/harvard-buys-vacant-tech-center-for/
 
the far end of the Inner Belt Industrial Park in Somerville also got a never-used 'telecom hotel' building. I don't know at the moment whether it ever attracted another kind of tenant.

Didn't the upper floors of Jordan Marsh/Macy's become a (successful) telecom hotel?
 
Harvard's Revised Plan Unveiled.

Video with overview and timetable.

http://bcove.me/psr4foqq

Harvard may turn to partners to revive Allston expansion
​
By Andrew RyanGlobe Staff / June 16, 2011

​
 [FONT=&quot]Harvard University leaders will recommend today that the school take a dramatically different approach to its stalled expansion in Allston by dividing the ambitious vision into smaller projects and partnering with outside developers and investors.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
A team that included a majority of Harvard?s deans will urge the university to redesign a signature science complex on Western Avenue, where work stopped last year after the school?s endowment plunged during the recession. Construction there will likely not resume until at least 2013.[/FONT]
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But work is already proceeding at other university projects in Allston, including at a facility Harvard has dubbed its Innovation Lab, due to open this fall in the old WGBH studios. It promises to foster connections between students, faculty, and dreamers from outside the school.[/FONT]
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Even with the shift in approach, the Allston project retains the promise to be the most significant expansion in Harvard?s history.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
The plan, scheduled to be presented today to Harvard president Drew Faust and Allston residents at a community meeting, lacks many specifics about cost, size, timing, and commitments from outside developers. But the recommendations for more modest short-term development could mark a new start for a gritty neighborhood that has been promised a building boom for more than a decade.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
?This is saying that these are things we believe are doable,?? said Alex Krieger, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design who helped lead the team as it studied the Allston expansion over the past 18 months. ?This is actually a wiser way to do planning as opposed to promising an undeliverable future, which was the case a few years ago.??[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
The recommendations, outlined for Globe reporters and editors yesterday, include developing an enterprise research campus on a 36-acre swath of Harvard-owned land near the Massachusetts Turnpike. University leaders described that venture as a new Kendall Square, where academic research and business, science and venture capital could thrive in close proximity.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
An analysis found demand for a conference center and hotel with 180 rooms. The team also urged the university to create stores, restaurants, day care, and housing for faculty and graduate students near Barry?s Corner, a forlorn crossroads imagined years ago as an anchor for the neighborhood?s long-awaited renaissance. Harvard owns much of the property there. In what university officials said proves their commitment to moving forward, a half-dozen businesses ? including two restaurants ? are due to open this summer.[/FONT]
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The most significant change so far appears to be within the power dynamics of Harvard itself, an institution legendary for its fiefdoms. The team that studied Allston included eight of the university?s deans, a group not accustomed to sharing authority. They made a humbling discovery: The university should look outside its walls to private developers.[/FONT]
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?It turns out there are people who do some things better than Harvard, lo and behold,?? said Peter Tufano, a financial management professor at Harvard Business School who helped lead the team. ?We should do what we do best. And we should let other people do what they do best.??[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
The addition of private developers would ease Harvard?s financial risk. The life science center ? a major anchor of the development ? would still be funded by Harvard and donations it raises. But other parcels would depend on outside developers financing housing and buildings, as well as companies that might take long-term leases. An existing example is the Genzyme [/FONT]building along Storrow Drive, on land that Harvard owns.
[FONT=&quot]
Harvard has tightened its belt since the financial crisis but still has about $6 billion in debt ? the most in its history. Katherine N. Lapp, the university?s executive vice president, said yesterday that Harvard?s finances were improving but still constrained.

She acknowledged that the university was unlikely to borrow more for the restarted Allston project, or spend deeply from its own pockets, until at least 2013. And Harvard has adopted a new approach to building, she said: It must raise significant outside money before it starts construction instead of pledging large sums of its own money.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Faust will discuss the recommendations with the Harvard Corporation, the university?s governing body, and decide whether to move forward. Harvard officials have already shared their findings with elected officials, including Mayor Thomas M. Menino.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
?I?m pleased with the plan they are putting together at this time, and now we are going to have to put a timeline on when some of these projects will move forward,?? Menino said. ?I spoke with President Faust just the other day, and she assures me there is a real commitment to getting these sites developed in the very near future.??[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Greg Bialecki, the state?s secretary of housing and economic development, welcomed the recommendation that Harvard ?take these plans out of mothballs and off the shelf and put them back into play.??[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
The harder sell will be in Allston, where university officials will present their ideas to residents at 6 tonight at Cumnock Hall at the Harvard Business School. For some longtime residents such as Harry Mattison, a new way forward in Allston will be a reminder of how much remains undone.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
?At this point, to hear more great ideas from Harvard is really hard,?? said Mattison, a member of a neighborhood planning task force who has not yet been made aware of the university?s plans. ?Harvard has made and broken so many promises and had so many great ideas that then later get thrown into the trash that my neighbors and I have really lost any faith we ever had in Harvard.??[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Allston has long been home to Harvard?s athletic fields and the business school, but the push to build a second campus in Allston began secretly in the late 1980s, when the university hired a developer to buy land along Western Avenue. Harvard revealed the covert expansion in 1997, after spending $88 million for 52 acres in Allston. The university had become the landlord of a supermarket, health clinic, a car dealer, a two-family home, and more.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Harvard came under fire from Allston residents. At the time, Menino chided the university?s ?total arrogance.?? The university sought to make amends. It agreed to pay the city millions in lieu of taxes for its exempt property, and embarked on an aggressive campaign to prove it was a good neighbor.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
But the university also kept buying land. It now owns 359 acres in Allston ? almost double the footprint of its Cambridge campus. Late in 2003, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers laid out a grand vision: a new Allston campus larger than the university?s main campus.[/FONT]
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?The only constraint,?? Summers told the Globe in 2003, should ?be the constraint of our vision and our ideas.??[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
The plans matched that boundless ambition: A 250-acre campus teeming with academic facilities, student housing, theaters, and an art museum. It included a pedestrian bridge over the Charles River and burying 800 feet of Soldiers Field Road underground to create a tree-lined promenade along the river. The design even included a new Harvard Square: Barry?s Corner would be transformed into an urban square with shops, restaurants, outdoor cafes, and a plaza.[/FONT]
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But before Harvard broke ground, the university began pulling back. New president Faust said in December 2007 that she planned to reexamine the project, exhibiting restraint that some critics said was absent in the headstrong push by her predecessor.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Groundbreaking went forward, however, on the first part of the project: A $1 billion, 589,000-square-foot science complex. Within a year, construction slowed as the recession battered Harvard?s endowment, which plunged by $11 billion, or 27 percent. Harvard announced in late 2009 it planned to stop work.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Today, a tall wooden fence surrounds the stalled construction, walling off one side of Western Avenue. Patches of knee-high weeds mar Harvard?s landscaping along the sidewalk. The site was so still this week that the chirp of crickets could be heard as a rabbit hopped across the concrete, pooled with standing water.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Behind the fence, the site had been capped at ground level. Crews completed a 300,000-square foot foundation. Harvard officials yesterday described the structure as a very short building that some day will form the base of a 500,000 to 700,000-square-foot science center, which would translate into several stories.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
A former gas station owned by Harvard is an active construction site with a banner that says, ?Coming Soon: Stone Hearth Pizza.?? A similar sign hangs in the vacant window of another Harvard property, a former car dealership that promises to be the home of Swissb?kers, slated to open this fall.[/FONT]
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?Harvard remains committed to Allston,?? Lapp said. ?Allston is part of the fabric of the university. It is not a separate place. It?s as important as Cambridge.?? [/FONT]
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...rtners_to_revive_allston_expansion/?page=full


[FONT=&quot]Revised plan mixes academia, industry[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]By Liz Kowalczyk and Megan Woolhouse[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Globe Staff [/FONT][FONT=&quot]/[/FONT][FONT=&quot] June 16, 2011[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Harvard University?s new vision for a science campus in Allston is far different from the original idea it pursued over the past decade.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The revamped proposal still includes a health and life science center on Western Avenue with up to 700,000 square feet of space for laboratories and academic researchers drawn from other Harvard locations in Cambridge and Boston?s Longwood Medical Area.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]But now, the largest science footprint would be a 36-acre, privately-developed ?enterprise research campus?? with as many as 12 buildings for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and venture capital companies that the university hopes to attract to create a thriving mix of academia and industry similar to Cambridge?s Kendall Square.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The addition of a significant commercial component in Allston Landing North, land occupied for years by CSX [/FONT]railroad, represents a shift in thinking for Harvard ? as well as a realization that financing will be far easier with industry partners.

?There was an aversion to mixing commerce and academia,?? said Peter Tufano, a professor at Harvard Business School who helped develop the recommendations. Now university officials hope the mix will create ?a gateway, a nexus?? that could rival ? or surpass ? the success of the life science industry at Kendall Square near MIT, he said.

[FONT=&quot]?It?s quite a good thing, as opposed to an objectionable thing, to partner with business,?? Tufano said. ?It complements what we want to do and embodies new ideas.??[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Harvard officials said they were confident the enterprise campus would be attractive to businesses, despite competition from Kendall Square. ?I?ve been meeting with developers,?? said Katherine N. Lapp, executive vice president. ?To a person, people said this is a very unique site.??[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Harvard sought advice from land specialists and development consultants to understand current market conditions and alternative development methods.[/FONT]

McCall & Almy was one of the local real estate firms that consulted with Harvard. ?The Harvard Allston holdings represent one of the most promising real estate development opportunities in the country,?? Bill McCall, firm president and principal, said in a press release to be issued by Harvard today.

[FONT=&quot]The task force of Harvard deans, faculty, and alumni that developed the proposal is to present its recommendations to university president Drew Faust and Harvard?s governing board today, as well as to Allston residents and businesses.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]University officials said they did not want to discuss the cost or financing of the project because any projections are preliminary, though they said a substantial portion of money for the health and life science center will likely come from Harvard?s upcoming fund-raising campaign.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Officials said they are still working out which Harvard scientists and departments would relocate to the Allston center, which could be up to one-third larger than Harvard Medical School?s New Research Building on the Longwood campus, which was the university?s largest research and education building when it opened in 2003.[/FONT]

Portions of the Harvard School of Public Health, located in Longwood, are a possibility, as well as Harvard?s emerging global health initiatives, stem cell researchers, and imaging science.

[FONT=&quot]In its initial plan for development in Allston, Harvard envisioned its Stem Cell Institute and School of Public Health moving to the new campus. After the plan was put on hold due to the recession in 2009 ? with the science center?s foundation already built ? Harvard found many of its stem cell researchers renovated space in Cambridge, which they plan to move into in August. It?s unclear how that will affect stem cell science in Allston.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]?Who will be in this new space is still being decided,?? said Dr. David Scadden, co-director of the institute.[/FONT]

Harvard officials said the underground 5-acre foundation of the health and life science center, previously envisioned in part for parking, would be perfect for imaging, which does not require outside light and would benefit from the extra-solid construction that resists vibrations.

[FONT=&quot]Harvard?s provost, Steven Hyman, said the university is exploring using the space for research that involves imaging single cells, as well as collaborating with Harvard teaching hospitals that have run out of space and want to ?develop the next generation of tools?? to find and treat disease.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]For the enterprise research campus, Harvard said it would work with private developers to create a cluster of buildings that could be leased by companies that spin off from its research facility or businesses that want to be near other life science companies. The site is also near a Genzyme [/FONT]drug manufacturing facility, which sits on Harvard-owned land that it leases.

[FONT=&quot]Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said yesterday that he does not think the Harvard plan will interfere with his efforts to create an Innovation District to attract life science and biotechnology firms to the area that stretches from Fort Point Channel to the Boston Marine Industrial Park, and from the Seaport area to the Convention and Exhibition Center. Developers envision multiple office buildings, residences, stores and hotel rooms in the district as well as an ?innovation center?? designed to foster collaboration among companies located there.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]?More is more, simple as that,?? Menino said. ?There?s opportunity for growth in the enterprise campus and the Innovation District.?? [/FONT]
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[/FONT]http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma..._vision_of_its_allston_science_campus/?page=1
 
Details can be gleaned from clicking on the tabs on the left side of the page at this link.
http://www.evp.harvard.edu/allston

Another Harvard link,
http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/06/major-new-allston-plan-announced


From the Harvard Crimson,
A set of highly anticipated guidelines from an advisory group has recommended that Harvard pursue an aggressive strategy of development in Allston, focusing on developing a commercially oriented research park, expanding faculty and graduate housing, and constructing a redesigned Science Complex.

Construction on much of Harvard?s Allston development was halted in 2009 amid budgetary concerns, but the recommendations released Wednesday by the the Harvard Allston Work Team?a 14-person group of deans, alumni, and faculty members?do not make clear where funding for the construction plans outlined in the recommendations will come from.

?Allston is integral to Harvard?s future, and these ideals both affirm previous planning principles and inject fresh thinking, particularly in their focus on innovation and on private sector partnerships for near term development,? University President Drew G. Faust said in a press release.

The Work Team?s central recommendations are that Harvard resume the development of a science center on the existing Western Avenue site, create an enterprise research campus in Allston Landing North, engage third party developers to construct housing complexes for graduate students and faculty in Barry?s Corner, develop plans for the land currently housing the Charlesview Apartments, and explore the possibility of constructing a hotel and conference center on Western Avenue.

The recommendations suggest that Harvard will retool its financing strategy for its Allston developments. If implemented, the recommendations would set up several sources of income for the University that may be used to bankroll the real estate developments in the neighborhood. The work team recommendations suggest that the University develop, for example, a hotel and private sector office and lab space, two developments that may help Harvard defray costs.

The report suggested that the upcoming capital campaign would also provide funding for this project and called the campaign ?a unique opportunity to facilitate and support development of this site.? It also urges Harvard to consider the ?programmatic needs? of the School of Public Health, which currently lacks office and teaching space to meet demand.

The School has leased nearby property in order to meet its space needs, but those moves have been seen as stop gaps measures and are unlikely to be viable as a long-term solution.

Work Team Co-Chairs Bill Purcell, Harvard Business School Professor Peter Tufano ?79, and Graduate School of Design Professor Alex Krieger stressed the practicality and feasibility of the five-point recommendations.

?We think that these recommendations are practical, tangible, and viable,? Purcell said.

The recommendations suggest that the University shelve designs for the billion dollar mecca for stem cell research that would have been the Allston Science Complex and consider building a 500,000 to 700,000 square foot complex that would be devoted to global health research, imaging technology, and/or stem cell research.

The recommendations also suggest that Harvard undertake several constructions projects with other institutions, a process known as ?co-development.? It is unclear, however, who exactly the University would partner with, but the Work Team recommendations sound an optimistic note about interest from local biotech firms.

?Co-development will be a very important part of what is ahead,? Purcell said.

One such project would be the development of an innovation and enterprise research center on Harvard?s 36-acre Allston Landing North, which is located off of Western Ave.

The campus ?would serve as a dynamic center for health and life sciences innovation that would attract research companies, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and biotech companies,? according to the report. Harvard would sign long term leases with private businesses and organizations to defray the costs of the University?s development in Allston.

Inspired by such centers at other universities like Stanford, the Work Team suggested the creation of a campus that would be a mix of faculty research facilities and private-sector businesses.

Tufano said that Allston Landing North will serve as a ?gateway into the Harvard community and it's gateway out from the Harvard community into the broader business world.?

He added that the Work Team was ?heartened by the indications of interest by various parties? in co-development at Allston Landing North.

?We learned to balance our aspirations with the realities of, for example, our ability to finance them,? Tufano said. ?We have to have high aspirations as a university but at the same time they have to be practical.?

The University halted construction in Allston in Dec. 2009 due to fallout from the previous year?s financial crisis. After Faust announced that Harvard would pause construction, she tasked the Work Team with developing proposals for Harvard?s construction in the neighborhood based upon various resources, including feedback from Allston residents.

Allston residents have been highly critical of the process that produced Wednesday?s recommendations and have bemoaned their lack of input regarding the University?s long-term planning for their large real estate holdings in the community.

The Work Team?s recommendations address some concerns raised by residents, but members of the Allston community have said in recent weeks that the types of businesses that Harvard has brought to the neighborhood do not provide the type of goods and services that used to anchor Western Ave.
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http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/6/16/allston-recommendations-harvard-work/
 
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The recommendations, outlined for Globe reporters and editors yesterday, include developing an enterprise research campus on a 36-acre swath of Harvard-owned land near the Massachusetts Turnpike. University leaders described that venture as a new Kendall Square, where academic research and business, science and venture capital could thrive in close proximity.
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I don't think that quite conjures up the imagery you intend it to. . .
 
The neighbors are not happy. They probably will never be happy.

http://www.boston.com/news/educatio...sidents_skeptical_of_harvards_revived_vision/

http://www.bostonherald.com/busines...over_harvard_plan/srvc=business&position=also

As for who the neighbors are?

Number of units of owner-occupied housing in North Allston (by number of rooms)
Lower Allston (North Allston)
Massachusetts​


  • 1 room: 11
  • 2 rooms: 6
  • 3 rooms: 18
  • 4 rooms: 96
  • 5 rooms: 139
  • 6 rooms: 120
  • 7 rooms: 37
  • 8 rooms: 90
  • 9+ rooms: 109

Number of units of renter-occupied housing in North Allston (by number of rooms)
Lower Allston (North Allston)
Massachusetts​


  • 1 room: 122
  • 2 rooms: 292
  • 3 rooms: 401
  • 4 rooms: 383
  • 5 rooms: 633
  • 6 rooms: 190
  • 7 rooms: 78
  • 8 rooms: 45
  • 9+ rooms: 37
 
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