UMass Boston Developments | Columbia Point | Dorchester

Looks pretty good. A lot of people seem to be against housing at UMB for fear of a culture change at the school, but I think it is a problem that needs to be addressed. Thousands of students rent in the immediate vicinity of the school in northern dorchester and it takes a lot of housing stock out of the market. I also know that a lot of students wish that they were able to live on campus and have the "college experience". This will essentially be the best of both worlds because this school is sort of unique how most of the student body actually lives within the community and the rest commute. There are around 20 thousand students here so that is not going to change but at least there will be another option that also eases some of the impact on the immediate housing in the area. I think this is a win win for everybody.
 
Great project. For a school like UMB, a public-private partnership makes sense. They have a small endowment and the state/system is funneling money to Amherst.

UMB is slowly going from one of the worst campuses on planet earth to one of the best urban campuses. Between adding dorms, the new science building, class room building, student union, and a major ongoing project to make a campus with a ring road instead of a through road, UMB is going in the right direction.

This project will house 1/17th of UMB when it is completed (assuming UMB doesn't growth). It will still be a commuter school moving in the right direction.

For those looking to say it will still be a meh school with a meh reputation in a city of great schools - you're right. But UMass Boston serves a different purpose. It serves the people of Massachusetts who cannot afford Northeastern, Suffolk, BU, or even UMass Amherst. I would love this school in the long run to have 1/4 of students live on campus, 3/4 commute, and be on the same level as Northeastern/BU/$60000 per year schools.
 
Some students within commuting distance will want to live on campus for that "college experience", thus greatly increasing the cost of a college education and accumulating more loans that after graduation they will complain about having to repay.
 
Maybe instead of complaining about how students are complaining about loans we need to look at why it is impossible for so many students to attend college either living on campus or even living at home without taking on enormous debt especially at public colleges and universities. It gets pretty old to hear people complain about students being upset about the outrageous cost of college and saying students should be able to work and go to a cheap school and get out without many loans. The reality is that even doing that most people will not be able to get out even close to debt free.

Also there are many benefits that come with living on campus for example increased responsibility and independence as well as social bonds and experiences that contribute both to the learning experience and a persons long range success so I would not be so dismissive of people wanting to live on campus.
 
The dorm looks a lot like the NU West Village dorms that opened in 1999. What a great addition to UMB.

This thread has already derailed...fantastic.
 
TomOfBoston said:
Some students within commuting distance will want to live on campus for that "college experience", thus greatly increasing the cost of a college education and accumulating more loans that after graduation they will complain about having to repay.
Click to expand...

I know Worcester State has or had a policy that if you lived within 20 miles of campus you were not allowed to live on campus. The 20 miles may be incorrect, but the policy was there.
 
Call me old fashioned, but I don't think this is a good model for public/private partnership if the result is a dorm owned by a third party in perpetuity. Ownership should revert to UMass after the private company has made its profit.
 
TomOfBoston said:
Some students within commuting distance will want to live on campus for that "college experience", thus greatly increasing the cost of a college education and accumulating more loans that after graduation they will complain about having to repay.
Click to expand...

Housing costs are housing costs. Most of the students who will be living in these dorms would have been paying rent anyway, and living in Boston neighborhoods is not exactly cheap...

Numerous studies have shown that students who live on campus are more likely to graduate than their similar peers who live off campus. Even if the dorms are more expensive than Dorchester apartments, being in debt with a degree is better than being slightly less in debt without one.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
The dorm looks a lot like the NU West Village dorms that opened in 1999. What a great addition to UMB.

This thread has already derailed...fantastic.
Click to expand...

I dont think a thread with basically no information and only 1 render is derailed by people talking about what impact the buildings in that render will have in the community. Essentially everybody is just expanding on the limited info available at the time and provided in the link in the first post. Everything thus far has been informative and on topic in my opinion.
 
I'm assuming by "off topic" he was referring to the comments about students and debt. While not entirely off topic, it certainly has that familiar ArchBoston ring of becoming intensely political.
 
UMass Boston held its annual community update just over a week ago. A bit of background - UMB was largely built in the 1970s and little has been done to keep it in a good shape. The UMass system as a whole has a $3 billion dollar state of good repair backlog. The master plan looks to tear down some of the older buildings, move the roadway to the perimeter, build new buildings, add greenspace, and add dorms.

here is the 25 year master plan map with the science center location circled
imgur.com/pjZJpXE

The integrated science center is open and the final landscaping is complete. As previously discussed in the forum, it is a great addition to the school and offers a needed break from the massive amounts of 1970s brick

http://imgur.com/4FeZpau

University hall is now open and complete. I think it is a solid addition to the campus. It drastically expands classroom space and provides a good framing of the campus.
http://imgur.com/4SUCYlk

BDcMUy6



They are either moving or adding a hubway location behind the new science building.

The 180 million dollar utility relocation project is underway and supposed to be completed next year. Currently most of the utilities are routed through the substructure of a building that is in such terrible shape they closed the garage due to the risk of collapse. They plan to tear down most of the monstrosity and put in a central quad making the campus feel like an actual campus.

http://imgur.com/BDcMUy6

Lastly, they are planning on breaking ground on the 1000 student dorm in late fall of this year on parcel r1.
 
They will build new buildings, not maintain them, and 40 years from now they will tear them down and build more new ones, all at taxpayer expense.
 
TomOfBoston said:
They will build new buildings, not maintain them, and 40 years from now they will tear them down and build more new ones, all at taxpayer expense.
Click to expand...

The Amherst campus is doing a good job avoiding the mistakes they made in the last cycle

the Amherst campus is committed to protect its investment in new facilities as they are constructed. The campus sets aside 1.5% of the construction cost/year for all newly constructed facilities to fund long-term maintenance needs.
Click to expand...
- from the capital plan. I'm not sure if umb is doing this too
 
TomOfBoston said:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...9lMbXueY3hDay9XuGEIx0GH9ewfHRmUcl6wPixdxnUalw


Although the new dorms were built by a private contractor they appear to adhere to the traditional UMass Boston construction standards.
Click to expand...

I read that article today with interest. I found UMB's Chancellor Katherine Newman's reaction to be stunningly nonchalant. I can't imagine UMA's Chancellor Kumble Subbaswammy reacting in that manner. There is a canyon's difference in leadership culture between the two campuses. UMB students should demand to get UMA-level competence and attitude from their leadership. Subbaswammy is writing the book that other university leaders are flocking to learn. It is 2018, folks. What passes for acceptability at UMB is a travesty when the very same system has the template for efficiency and operational excellence 90 miles away.
 
I agree UMB leadership should be more responsive, especially to the students living in the dorms. But I also hope that any building issues, like the HVAC and elevators, are quirks that the builders are responsible for correcting. My office moved into a newly renovated building months ago and there are still problems being worked out. For example, the HVAC system probably won't be fully optimized until it is tested in both summer heat and winter cold. I suspect that a rush to get the dorms open (just like the rush to get my office into the renovated building) results in building commissioning continuing beyond the opening, when it would be more ideal to be fully commissioned before using it. Operations problems, like the food and security, sound very fixable.

I remember the Campus Center got some bad publicity when it first opened because it too had wrinkles to get ironed out. But all was worked out and the building functions well. Remember, our beloved privately built Hancock Tower had all its windows fall out and even needed a mass damper installed post construction.
 
"There will be a lot to investigate. Complaints range from the ordinary — limited dining hall hours on the weekend — to downright concerning, such as strangers spending the night in the common rooms...."

At UMass Boston, dorms not yet a home away from home

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...rocky-start/dyZ2GEX708Um0lJITriq7K/story.html

By Laura Krantz GLOBE STAFF NOVEMBER 11, 2018

The freshmen who moved into UMass Boston’s first-ever dormitory on Labor Day made history, helping to turn the campus into something more than a commuter school.

But two months into the school year, the dorm — two gleaming structures by the waterfront on Columbia Point, housing 1,077 students — is turning out to be more like the Tower of Tribulations than the Taj Mahal.

In the first weeks of school, dorm elevators abruptly fell several floors with students inside. Water shot out of one toilet when you flushed another, students reported. The rooms are often stifling hot, but the showers are frigid. The hamburgers in the dining hall are sometimes raw.

It’s safe to say there are growing pains at the residence hall. Students love living so close to class, but the dorm living, which costs between $9,000 and $12,000 per year, not including meals, is not as advertised.

“They don’t know how to be a dorm yet,” said Dominique Counos, a freshman from Agawam who was in an elevator that dropped.

“It was like a deep fall, but we managed to keep standing up,” said her friend Ashley Gospodarczyk, who was also in the elevator when it jerked downward several times from the seventh floor before shooting up to the 12th. While the elevators were being repaired, students had to take the stairs to their rooms.

Until recently, residents said their complaints have fallen on deaf ears....
contd.....


The rest of the story continues on and on citing more issues adding up to what appears to be egregious construction quality and very poor site management....
 
It was no surprise to read that and see that Sodexo is running the cafeteria. They run the one at my office and they are not good at what they do.
 
odurandina said:
"There will be a lot to investigate. Complaints range from the ordinary — limited dining hall hours on the weekend — to downright concerning, such as strangers spending the night in the common rooms...."

At UMass Boston, dorms not yet a home away from home

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...rocky-start/dyZ2GEX708Um0lJITriq7K/story.html

By Laura Krantz GLOBE STAFF NOVEMBER 11, 2018

The freshmen who moved into UMass Boston’s first-ever dormitory on Labor Day made history, helping to turn the campus into something more than a commuter school.

But two months into the school year, the dorm — two gleaming structures by the waterfront on Columbia Point, housing 1,077 students — is turning out to be more like the Tower of Tribulations than the Taj Mahal.

In the first weeks of school, dorm elevators abruptly fell several floors with students inside. Water shot out of one toilet when you flushed another, students reported. The rooms are often stifling hot, but the showers are frigid. The hamburgers in the dining hall are sometimes raw.

It’s safe to say there are growing pains at the residence hall. Students love living so close to class, but the dorm living, which costs between $9,000 and $12,000 per year, not including meals, is not as advertised.

“They don’t know how to be a dorm yet,” said Dominique Counos, a freshman from Agawam who was in an elevator that dropped.

“It was like a deep fall, but we managed to keep standing up,” said her friend Ashley Gospodarczyk, who was also in the elevator when it jerked downward several times from the seventh floor before shooting up to the 12th. While the elevators were being repaired, students had to take the stairs to their rooms.

Until recently, residents said their complaints have fallen on deaf ears....
contd.....


The rest of the story continues on and on citing more issues adding up to what appears to be egregious construction quality and very poor site management....
Click to expand...

Who's bright idea was it to outsource it?????

[ . . . ]
The dorm was built, and is operated, by a private, for-profit company that leases land from UMass. Students make their housing payments directly to the company, Capstone Development, which will own the building for 40 years. After that, ownership will revert to UMass.

Capstone Development spent $119.4 million building the dorm, while UMass Boston contributed $18 million for staff, the dining hall, and other services, according to a university spokesman.

A Capstone spokeswoman, Nicole Ivanovich, said the company has been working with its contractor and subcontractors to respond quickly to “residual construction-related issues.”

“Most have been able to be repaired or resolved in short order. A few issues required the ordering of materials or parts [and] have taken a bit longer,” Ivanovich said in a statement. She said the number of issues has been “relatively modest — particularly given the size and complexity of this community.”

“We regret any inconvenience to student residents in addressing these items. We will continue to provide prompt and professional attention to any construction related repairs that are needed,” the Capstone statement said.

Sodexo declined to comment.
[ . . . ]


By the time this building becomes owned by the Commonwealth it may have caved in already. "Let the private sector do it" they say. "The private sector is always better they say...." Well voila!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top