Northeastern University - Institutional Master Plan

I have read in the Northeastern media that the ARC crossing the tracks is still the plan. They are still working with the blasted MBTA to coordinate construction with the T's upgrade to Ruggles station.
 
So the BPDA just dropped this announcement in an email this afternoon: Northeastern University is making a 2nd amendment to their Institutional Master Plan.

"The University wants to increase the amount of leased space within the Christian Science Church Complex... The leased space will be made available to the University in phases over a two year period starting with a single floor in early 2017 and by mid 2019, Northeastern will be in control of all of the Publishing House Building."
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A photo in the PNF outlines the Publishing Building section (Building B) that the University will occupy. CSC will continue to occupy Building A, which I believe also houses the Mapparium.


CSC Publishing House by Derek Shooster, on Flickr

**The amendment also features language for a 3,800-square foot addition to Squashbusters (built where the driveway is currently).
 
I wonder if Northeastern will eventually lease the entire CSC, except for the Mother Church itself? The Sunday School building could be converted to an incredible performing arts center.
 
Does anyone know when the new dorm tower will break ground?
 
So they want an IMP that will never change? Northeastern wants to fill an existing mostly empty church property with offices and storage? How is that going to affect the neighborhood negatively?
 
TomOfBoston said:
Northeastern wants to fill an existing mostly empty church property with offices and storage? How is that going to affect the neighborhood negatively?
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A couple hundred extra white collar people crossing Mass Ave and Westland everyday... oh, the horror!
 
Could this be an effort stop a 21 story tower, or any more 230' dorm towers?
 
odurandina said:
Could this be an effort stop a 21 story tower, or any more 230' dorm towers?
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Assuming you're referring to the Fenway CDC proposed "freeze", I think their concerns are merited.

As we know, all institutions in the city are required to submit a master plan every ~10 years. While this is excellent for the institutions' and immediate stakeholders' planning purposes, it accomplishes little to nothing in the grander scheme of a regional vision. This is one of the major missteps of the current Imagine Boston 2030 Master Plan: while it acknowledges that institutions are adding housing and additional academic spaces to their campuses (and leasing back-of-house office space in NU's case), it does not cohesively assess the greater impacts of this fragmented growth on the whole city.

There's no assessment of traffic patterns now v. proposed. There's nothing in the way of broadband/wi-fi infrastructure growth citywide. There's no census of cycle users going to/from the schools/hospitals, let alone a vision for cycle track implementation between complementary institutions and neighborhoods.

I'm a very big proponent of progressive growth, YIMBYism, and long range planning, but I've got to side with Fenway CDC for raising their concerns. Unfortunately, it's silly of them to blame the institutions... the problems they raised identify a failure of the draft Imagine Boston 2030 Master Plan as a whole.
 
So the NIMBY's want the students to live on campus, but the school's should not build high rise dorms, and the school's can't buy any more land (even if it is a vacant lot) to build low rise dorms.
 
TomOfBoston said:
So the NIMBY's want the students to live on campus, but the school's should not build high rise dorms, and the school's can't buy any more land (even if it is a vacant lot) to build low rise dorms.
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NO!

The Fenway CDC aren't being "NIMBY's." They're just demanding that the colleges and the BPDA work together on better-coordinated long-term planning. In other words, they don't want millions of square feet of new development carelessly developed before the city/region has coordinated a plan for accommodating the added traffic, more intense use of utility, infrastructure requirements.

The folks I've met from Fenway CDC and other neighborhood groups are neither implicitly nor explicitly anti student housing. They just want every detail, person, place, and outcome taken into consideration. It sounds like a tall order, but it's a necessary one. I agree with them. More should've been done to coordinate institutional growth with neighborhood, city, and regional growth in the city's master plan. Until they work together, we're putting the cart before the horse.
 
dshoost88 said:
They just want every detail, person, place, and outcome taken into consideration. It sounds like a tall order, but it's a necessary one. I agree with them.
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That is an impossible and totally utopian goal. Boston and other great cities were not built on some idealistic plan or any plan. Cities have grown organically.

The T has spent a over a decade planning the Green Line extension to Medford and they listened to every community and special interest group imaginable and what has it produced? Nothing!
 
This has to be one of the coolest buildings in the city for the last 20 years. It is so not Boston. I would be more likely to see a building like this in ANYWHERE else.
 
Its a little thing, but I love that slope leading up to the Orange Line tracks. Anyone know if there's any use of it being made underneath all that dirt?
 
^I think it's just gearing up for the Arc/bridge across the O-Line.
 
TomOfBoston said:
That is an impossible and totally utopian goal. Boston and other great cities were not built on some idealistic plan or any plan. Cities have grown organically.

The T has spent a over a decade planning the Green Line extension to Medford and they listened to every community and special interest group imaginable and what has it produced? Nothing!
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Tomof Boston -- that is spot on

No harm in planning -- just don't take it too seriously

Plans of that type are like weather forecasts -- good chance the next day or so is useful -- but don't attach too much credibility to that 10-day

So a plan for the next year or so focused on some new development -- good value -- a plan for the next decade -- ????

A collective plan for a bunch of institutions over the next decade -- its like herding cats
 
great cities were not built on some idealistic plan or any plan.
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220px-Georges-Eug%C3%A8ne_Haussmann_-_BNF_Gallica.jpg

You don't say. Please tell me more.
 
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