Boston College got the green light Tuesday to build a 490-bed residence hall on its Brighton campus, part of a far-reaching plan to expand the college’s facilities in the neighborhood.
BC officials said they are planning to begin construction on the six-story dorm at 2150 Commonwealth Ave. this spring.
While the college’s representatives shook hands and flashed smiles after their project’s approval, Northeastern University officials decided before the hearing they would not seek approval for the school’s 10-year institutional master plan (IMP) from the BRA board of directors, pulling the item off the agenda.
The reversal came in the face of opposition from neighbors and elected officials that have been pushing Northeastern to focus on housing more of its students on campus, instead of forcing them into area apartments because of a lack of university-controlled beds.
"The most important thing an institution can do is build housing," so substantial changes still need to be made to the school’s long-term plan, said City Councilor Michael Ross, who represents the nearby Fenway and Mission Hill neighborhoods.
The college is in the midst of creating one dorm, called the GrandMarc, at the old YMCA on Huntington Avenue that will add 720 beds by 2014. The college proposes other potential housing projects in its IMP. When GrandMarc opens, the number of university-controlled beds will exceed 8,500, in addition to the approximately 500 beds in master leases, according to the school’s IMP.
When accounting for students out of the area on co-op and those who reside outside Boston, that inventory will accommodate approximately 67 percent of undergraduates seeking housing in Boston.
However, last night’s BRA hearing agenda convinced residents and others that Northeastern is more focused on academic and research expansion than student housing. If the project had remained on the agenda and approved, the school would have been nearly cleared to start construction on an 180,000-square-foot science and engineering building along Columbus Avenue. That project would have taken priority over any residential projects.
In response to the college’s shifting focus, "a number" of elected officials advised the BRA to deny approval for Northeastern’s IMP, said director Peter Meade.
"Quite frankly, this one wasn’t done," Meade said.
In other BRA news, the board approved a proposal to build a 156-room "boutique" hotel at 6 West Broadway in South Boston, just across from the Broadway stop on the MBTA Red Line.
"There is major demand" for a hotel to host guests of area residents, said an attorney for the $35 million project’s developer, Sun Condos LLC, an affiliate of Pappas Enterprises Inc., the firm that built the nearby Macallen and Court Square Press residential buildings. The hotel would include a restaurant on the ground floor and a rooftop pool.
