Simmons University Living and Learning Center | 300 Fenway | Longwood

Re: Simmons College

Almost assuredly it will be the residential slice:

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The bizjournals shows an air-shot of that slice:
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Re: Simmons College

Boston Business Journal said:
Simmons College has two stipulations for any potential developer of roughly half of its 12-acre campus adjacent to Boston's Longwood Medical Area.

One is to upgrade Simmons' 1,100 student dormitory rooms. The other is to redevelop its 1970s-era Park Science building. Other than that, it's a blank slate.

No details yet.
 
The vacated Simmons residential campus and the now BU owned and underused Wheelock/Fenway campus may become part of a major new development. BU would likely make a lot of money on the sale of Wheelock.
 
How many Simmons students are living ON campus? I'm getting sick of the city letting the universities run wild in this city. How much of a factor are the schools to not having affordable housing in this city? Probably very high. Make them have enough housing for all their kids before they start engaging in money grabs.
 
I dunno about anybody else, but the idea of closing down an entire college campus and (presumably) turning it over to a a private developer makes me feel a little gross.
 
How many Simmons students are living ON campus? I'm getting sick of the city letting the universities run wild in this city. How much of a factor are the schools to not having affordable housing in this city? Probably very high. Make them have enough housing for all their kids before they start engaging in money grabs.

With this they'll have 1100 beds, with ~1800 in total undergraduate enrollment and ~2400 total with graduate. Their website and IMP don't make it clear how many commute from home or live off campus.
 
they might have proposed 24 stories--so it could be approved for the '21.'

How many Simmons students are living ON campus? I'm getting sick of the city letting the universities run wild in this city. How much of a factor are the schools to not having affordable housing in this city? Probably very high.....

Huh??

Aren't they just doing what the City told them to do?
re; fix the problem by bringing the students back onto the campus'
thus use the land owned by the universities to create vacancies in the City's limited housing pool.
 
It sounds like its consolidating the campus, not adding on campus beds. Thus theyre going to forever limit their expansion possibilities/adding beds to be self contained
 
"Unlike some of those schools that are struggling financially, Simmons’ enrollment has grown significantly in recent years. Today, the school has more than 7,000 full-time, part-time, and online students, up from about 4,600 in the 2013-2014 academic year. Full-time enrollment is up 42 percent, mostly because of growth in the number of graduate students." [Globe]

Simmons is doing great. Nothing about present case suggests that "the idea of college has finally reached its natural limits." That belief is completely untethered from the case at hand and irrelevant to a discussion of Simmons' campus developments.

Also:
"Simmons was founded in 1899 with a bequest by John Simmons, a wealthy clothing manufacturer in Boston. Simmons founded the college based on the belief that women ought to live independently by offering a Liberal Arts education for undergraduate women to integrate into professional work experience." [wikipedia]

Simmons' mission today is pretty much the same as it was 120 years ago. Provide women with an undergraduate Liberal Arts education they can later build a career out of. Nothing has changed, it's only expanded to include men in graduate programs as well.
 
What's the problem? There are ~1,000 beds in the existing dorms and there will be ~1,100 beds in the new dorm.

I don't understand your sentence - what do you mean about affordable housing?

The way I've always felt about housing is, college kids are adults, over the age of 18. They are people who live in the city, just like everyone else.

Also, pull some data about housing of students on-campus. The reality might surprise you. I think only NeU has added more students than housing, or something like that.

The schools house more students than ever before.

If you're talking about grad students specifically, however, my understanding is that the numbers have increased. But grad students are in their 20s and beyond, who are we to demand they live in a certain place?

How many Simmons students are living ON campus? I'm getting sick of the city letting the universities run wild in this city. How much of a factor are the schools to not having affordable housing in this city? Probably very high. Make them have enough housing for all their kids before they start engaging in money grabs.
 
How many Simmons students are living ON campus? I'm getting sick of the city letting the universities run wild in this city. How much of a factor are the schools to not having affordable housing in this city? Probably very high. Make them have enough housing for all their kids before they start engaging in money grabs.

Doesn't matter if universities build dorms on campus when they charge around $5,000-$7,000 a semester for housing. Students are still going to opt to off-campus housing until off campus housing cost about the same as on campus housing.
 
Doesn't matter if universities build dorms on campus when they charge around $5,000-$7,000 a semester for housing.

Dorms are probably more expensive than they should be, but college students paying high rents in new on-campus dorms is better for all non-college student renters than if those students were paying those rents in the general apartment market instead. High dorms rents would be bad for non-students if the dorms were empty, but they're not.
 
"Unlike some of those schools that are struggling financially, Simmons’ enrollment has grown significantly in recent years. Today, the school has more than 7,000 full-time, part-time, and online students, up from about 4,600 in the 2013-2014 academic year. Full-time enrollment is up 42 percent, mostly because of growth in the number of graduate students." [Globe][/URL


Simmons has a very large online enrolment.
 
Just came across my mind - - what are the implications involved in selling off the residential campus? Odds another school (BU) picks it up? (though BU has spent and is spending quite a bit of capital, maybe not them) Or odds a developer geared toward healthcare/pharmaceuticals starts from scratch? (these aren't the most historical buildings, I presume?) This plot is rather strange. It has good access from Brookline Ave but goes far back with limited access from Pilgrim Road.

Regardless, I'm interested to see how this turns out. Could be huge...

[Edit: didn't see JumboBuc bring this up and the chaos that ensued afterward (which has since been moved), but I share the same interest in this as Jumbo in this situation]
 
Just came across my mind - - what are the implications involved in selling off the residential campus? Odds another school (BU) picks it up? (though BU has spent and is spending quite a bit of capital, maybe not them) Or odds a developer geared toward healthcare/pharmaceuticals starts from scratch? (these aren't the most historical buildings, I presume?) This plot is rather strange. It has good access from Brookline Ave but goes far back with limited access from Pilgrim Road.

Regardless, I'm interested to see how this turns out. Could be huge...

[Edit: didn't see JumboBuc bring this up and the chaos that ensued afterward (which has since been moved), but I share the same interest in this as Jumbo in this situation]

The most likely outcome is that another university buys it, since that's usually how these things go. UMass is probably kicking itself that it took on Mount Ida and made itself a villain in that story when this perfect property for them has now hit the market.

I wonder if the best use of this property would be for all the LMA hospitals to come together and build a residential campus for residents and nurses... that's a lot of people who don't make much money who could be housed walking distance from work.
 

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