Suffolk University hopes to build dorms at the former Metropolitan District Commission headquarters located at 20 Somerset St. in Boston.

Beacon Hill residents have won an important ally in their battle to prevent Suffolk University from building a 22-story dormitory in their neighborhood: Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Suffolk’s plan to raze the former Metropolitan District Commission headquarters at 20 Somerset St. and build 550 dorms has faced strong opposition from neighbors who say a nearby residence hall is already the source of numerous complaints.

Despite the school’s efforts to reduce the project by nine floors and shrink the number of beds by as much as 300, the Menino administration has told the school that he dropped his support for the project because of strong community opposition.

Suffolk officials have voiced disappointment over the mayor’s decision, but have focused their efforts on finding real estate in Boston’s Ladder District. The area is located between Tremont and Washington streets. The school already has a pair of new buildings on Tremont Street.

“The Beacon Hill community has made it clear they support dorms, not here, but in the Ladder District,” said John A. Nucci, Suffolk’s vice president of government and community affairs. “We will look there and hopefully get their support. It’s important for us to develop student housing as expeditiously as possible. It’s not just critical for the university but also for the city.”

‘A College Town’

Boston City Councilor Michael Ross, who represents Beacon Hill, said it was clear from the start that the neighborhood and Suffolk were miles apart in their differences. Ross spoke to the mayor and told him the negotiations were not going well, he said.

“There were fundamental disagreements between the parties and it seemed clear that student housing would not work on Beacon Hill,” Ross said. “A better solution is to build dorms where they can have a positive economic impact. Downtown Crossing screams out for 24/7 activity, which a dorm would bring. Suffolk has opportunity to take a page out of Emerson College’s book. They could do something meaningful and transform their campus and a part of Boston that desperately needs it.”

Emerson College has moved its campus from Boston’s Back Bay area to the Theater District and in doing so has revitalized what had been a run-down section of the city.

Like many city colleges and universities, Suffolk has faced a delicate situation as it tries to double the number of its dorm rooms to slightly more than 1,600. Despite the fact that Somerset Street is not a residential area of Beacon Hill, neighbors said they are leery of undergraduates in a neighborhood that is already beset by unruly student behavior.

Still, the city’s colleges and universities are faced with a myriad of problems as they try to add student housing. While community groups and city officials lobby schools to provide more housing to its students on campus, the institutions are faced with opposition from neighbors who object to the presence of undergraduates.

Jack Dunn, a spokesman for Boston College, said schools are frustrated because the mayor and community groups clearly want them to build more student housing – until the proposal is in their backyard.

“Boston’s a college town and every major American city would love to have that moniker because of the economic, social and intellectual benefits it provides,” Dunn said. “But it’s increasingly difficult for schools to build within city limits in the face of such organized opposition.”

The Beacon Hill Civic Association led the fight to prevent Suffolk from adding beds in the neighborhood, citing the school’s “lack of comprehensive planning and the drastic demographic changes that could result from such a project.”

Residents were strongly encouraged to send letters of opposition to Menino, state environmental officials, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Suffolk University President David Sargent and City Councilors Michael Ross and Salvatore LaMattina.

The association also asked for donations for a possible court fight so they can be “armed with funds in order to effectively represent the community in the public arena.”

The project also was opposed by guardians of the Garden of Peace, a memorial to homicide victims located on Somerset Street behind 100 Cambridge St. Members of the nonprofit group have said construction of a tall building at 20 Somerset St. would block the southern light for most of the year, increasing shadows and diminishing the environment. They argue that the new building would make the Garden of Peace a less pleasant place to visit. The group also was concerned about the wind effects of such a tall building.

Garden of Peace advocates also worried that the number of students living in the dormitory and the presence of a student center would result in lots of unsupervised students in the area at all hours. They feared that students would frequent the garden, especially since the university has limited open space.

Robert Whitney, chairman of the Suffolk University Community Task Force – a group created to advise the mayor on the scope of the project – said the panel objected to the fact that Suffolk has failed to do long-range planning.

“Suffolk built dorms at 10 Somerset St. a few years ago and we want to know how this new proposal fits into the growth of the college,” said Whitney. “There seems to be a lack of planning that the school must do rather than just buy up buildings and fill them with students.”

Not all of Boston’s neighborhoods oppose student housing. Several in the planning stages include Berklee College of Music’s 30-story residential tower in the Back Bay and Fenway neighborhoods, a science center for Harvard University in Allston and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology business school near the Charles River in Cambridge.

The BRA recently approved two new residence halls on Northeastern University’s campus. The $200 million project will result in the creation of 1,200 new dorm beds in the short term, with an additional 600 beds planned for a future phase of construction on a separate site. The first of two new residence halls will be located at the intersection of Tremont and Ruggles streets. The second will be built at the site of the school’s Cullinane Hall on St. Botolph Street, and will add 600 dorm beds to the campus.

Nucci said the school still wants to buy the Somerset Street building but is not sure how the facility will be used.

“We have a strong interest in buying the building and perhaps use it for administrative or classroom space,” he said. “In the meantime, we are seeking a new site for dorms that everyone can support.”