Berklee College of Music has been given the green light to proceed with campus expansion projects that will dramatically alter its real estate along Massachusetts Avenue in Boston – as well as potentially changing the character of the street itself.

But even as the famed music college attempts to hit a series of ambitious high notes with a pair of new towers, it may end up playing second fiddle to the grand ambitions of its pious neighbor and an enormously complex construction project over one of the city’s most critical arteries.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) board of directors recently approved the school’s 10-year institutional master plan (IMP), including preliminary plans for a controversial 290-foot-tall dormitory tower at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street dubbed the “Crossroads.” Construction could begin as soon as 2015, school officials said.

The BRA also gave the thumb’s up for the school to build a 192-foot-tall dormitory tower at 168 Mass. Ave. School representatives said they hope to start building in September, with an eye toward opening it in the fall of 2013. Construction costs would run approximately $65 million for the 155,000-square-foot structure.

Berklee’s project at 168 Mass. Ave. would include 4,200 square feet of ground floor retail space. The school would prefer to lease that space to a restaurateur and host live music in the eatery, said William Whitney, Berklee’s vice president for real estate.

A Shadow-y Undertaking

Together, the Crossroads and 168 Mass. Ave. projects would add about 800 beds to house students on campus, something strongly supported by community members and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino alike. Berklee’s goal is to eventually add 1,200 new beds to the campus.

“I think everybody agrees that Berklee should build as much student housing as possible to free up beds in the neighborhood,” even if some members of the city-appointed task force charged with evaluating the project would like to see the tower heights lowered, Whitney told Banker & Tradesman.

While the 14-member task force basically supports the 168 Mass. Ave. plans, in official comments to the BRA, the neighborhood group specifically cites concerns about how “dramatic” the changes from that project will be to the street’s character.

The task force of residents, community advocates and elected representatives did not reach a consensus about the larger Crossroads project. As proposed, the group said, the 24-story tower would violate a bill that neighborhood state representatives and task force members Marty Walz and Byron Rushing are working to pass in the Legislature. This so-called “shadow bill” is meant to protect public parks from shadow encroachment by prohibiting new construction that would create shadows beginning one hour after sunrise until one hour before sunset.

The group could not agree whether the shadows cast by the proposed tower would make a material difference on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, some three blocks removed from the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street.

“While some Task Force members find that the shadows that would be created on the Mall are minimal and worth the gains for the area, in particular the opening of housing to community residents as a result of the new dorm rooms, others find the shadows unacceptable, as they would be part of a continuing encroachment of shadow on an important green space in the city,” the task force’s comment letter says. “The projected 290-foot tower for the corner of Massachusetts Ave. and Boylston Street remains a point of disagreement among Task Force members. Some Task Force members find this project still too large and concentrated.”

Hemmed In

Berklee has shown some flexibility in its plans in the past, as a nod to community concerns – something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by local officials. When the neighborhood advisory group said the originally proposed 33 stories for the Crossroads project was too much, Berklee decided to push some of the programming intended for that building onto the 168 Mass. Ave. project, lowering the height of the corner tower first to 29 stories, then to its current 24-story level.

“What differentiates Berklee from others is its ability to listen and adapt where it can so the master plan is stronger than originally proposed,” Rep. Walz told Banker & Tradesman.

But even though the heights of the Berklee buildings would undoubtedly alter the face of the area, those are not the only significant changes that could hit the neighborhood in coming years. Two very significant projects on the horizon at opposite ends of Berklee’s stretch of Mass. Ave. could also have major impacts.

The Christian Science Church, which abuts Berklee with frontage on Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues, has proposed a sweeping redevelopment of its iconic plaza, including the construction of three large commercial towers of its own.

Those buildings, as proposed, would stand at 512 feet, 291 feet and 251 feet tall and total roughly 950,000 square feet – all just down the street from Berklee’s expansion.

And then there is Trinity Financial’s plan for a nearby air rights parcel, at the opposite end of Mass. Ave.

Trinity is looking to jumpstart the community process for a dorm project it wants to build with the Boston Architectural College (BAC) above the Massachusetts Turnpike, across Boylston Street from Berklee’s proposed larger tower.

Trinity has requested that the city appoint a citizens advisory committee (CAC) to review a proposal for a 120-foot-tall dorm with ground-floor retail on air rights parcel 13, according to Randi Lathrop, the BRA’s deputy director for community planning. The developer did not return calls seeking comment.

So, in the end, while Berklee wants to build bigger, its ambitions could be overshadowed. So to speak.