The University of Massachusetts Boston has the potential to spark a development boom that could do for Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester what Boston University did for Kenmore Square and Commonwealth Ave.
But first the university’s leaders and its backers will have to muster the political courage to stand up to the handful of Dorchester NIMBYs who for years have effectively kept Boston’s only public university bottled up on Columbia Point, unable to break out of its commuter school mode.
And when or frankly, even whether, that will ever happen is an open question right now.
This fall, UMass-Boston officials were supposed to roll out long-awaited plans to add the first dorms to its campus overlooking Boston Harbor, an odd mix of crumbling, institutional brick buildings from the bad old ‘70s that are slowly being replaced by new, spiffier, modern buildings.
It is part of an ambitious, $500 million campus overhaul, yet one that won’t truly be complete until the university can offer its students a place to live.
University officials talked in the spring about breaking ground on the long-awaited dorms at the end of this year or early 2014. A survey was even released showing strong support among UMass-Boston students for on-campus housing. But now all talk of an imminent groundbreaking is off the table, with a university spokesman unable to provide even a general estimate for when work might begin on the dorms.
“We are hoping to move forward as soon as possible,” said university spokesman DeWayne Lehman, who declined to offer a more specific timetable.
For decades now one of the best kept secrets in the Hub’s highly competitive higher education scene, UMass-Boston has the potential to take on Northeastern, Suffolk and other overpriced and overrated private colleges, providing an affordable, public alternative.
Anyone who has taught or attended a class at UMass-Boston is likely in on a secret few others know – it is one of the best bargains out there in a higher education world long on tuition and increasingly thin on actual substance.
The university has long boasted a great roster of top academics and relatively small class sizes, with elite think tanks like the Donahue and McCormack Institutes zeroing in on major local issues.
The students are often older and zeroed in on getting an education – it is the antithesis of UMass-Amherst, which has struggled for years to shake its reputation as a party school. (OK, I admit to being a little biased here, having graduated in 1990 with a degree in English and having done a couple pieces a few years ago for the campus newsletter.)
Yet despite this great potential, UMass-Boston has been shackled by one of the worst college campuses ever conceived or built by humankind, redeemed only by some breathtaking harbor views.
The buildings date to the 1970s, when the construction of the UMass-Boston campus was marred by shoddy and corrupt construction practices that sparked the landmark Ward Commission.
Billions of dollars were spent on public buildings at UMass-Boston and across the state that began falling apart not long after they opened, the commission revealed in a monumental, 13-volume report.
The result was an infrastructure disaster. Falling ceiling tiles forced the closure of the main, underground parking garage on the UMass-Boston campus, while the Healey library, which also had a nasty habit of shedding large chunks of its exterior onto the heads of passersby, was notorious for its stale, heaWdache-inducing air.
Under Chancellor J. Keith Motley, the university has already taken a number of big steps towards correcting this mess, building new, light and airy buildings as part of a sweeping campus overhaul.
Now the university is flirting ever so timidly with taking the ultimate plunge, with plans to build as many as 2,000 new dorm rooms over the next few years.
Whether university officials have the guts to take it, though, remains another question, and one upon which all the improvements to date frankly hinge.
The Missing Ingredient
For UMass-Boston, adding dorms is a crucial last ingredient in a promising recipe of campus redevelopment and academic expansion.
It is the only urban public research university now in the country without housing for its students.
Dorms, in turn, are crucial. It will help UMass-Boston attract better qualified high school students, while also creating a more collegiate atmosphere that, in turn, will keep promising students from moving on to other schools that actually have dorms and some level of campus life.
Most importantly, it will help fill a now gaping hole in the Bay State’s seemingly jam-packed lineup of private colleges and universities for a Boston-based university you don’t have to bankrupt yourself to send your kids to.
Frankly, it’s the glue needed to bind all the dramatic improvements that are currently being made to UMass-Boston’s battered and crumbling harbor-side campus.
A gorgeous new campus center opened up in 2004 near the harbor, while a new science center is set to welcome students the next year.
There are even plans to spiff up the barren, concrete plaza that sits at the center of the campus with a new, greenery-filled quad the size of Harvard Yard.
And in an uncharacteristically bold move, UMass-Boston risked the wrath of its Dorchester neighbors when it snapped up the old Bayside Exposition Center a couple years ago, effectively expanding the boundaries of its campus down Morrissey Boulevard.
However, a vocal group of longtime Dorchester residents, who point to a now decades-old understanding that UMass-Boston was to remain a commuter school, have managed to keep the university’s dorm plans in check for years now.
Sadly, the carping and irrational fears of a few self-styled neighborhood representatives has been enough to stymie plans for dorms for years now – plans have been talked about for decades, with the latest incarnation now dating back to 2007.
Meanwhile, university officials just keep pushing off the dorm issue to some future date, or, as in the latest delay, just vague talk of moving ahead “as soon as possible.”
Given the pattern here, can’t say that’s very reassuring, though would not be fair to say absolutely nothing is happening.
In fact, some important details appear to be getting hashed out behind the scenes. For example, university officials are weighing whether to move ahead with the UMass building authority or instead team up with a developer as part of a public/private partnership, Lehman said.
That said, let’s strip away the BS and look at what’s really going on here.
For the so-called neighborhood concerns are rather puzzling – especially to anyone with even a vague familiarity with location of the UMass-Boston campus to the rest of Dorchester, and in particular, its residential streets.
Basically, there is very little if any connection between the two, with the campus out on Columbia Point, atop a former landfill and, back in a World War II, a big pen for captured German and Italian soldiers,.
That means if and when dorms are actually built – and they are currently being discussed for any area directly adjacent to the harborside campus – they are not going to be anywhere near Savin Hill or traditional sections of Dorchester.
Moreover, many students are already setting up camp in apartments next door in the now mixed-income Columbia Point housing projects – or for that matter, in cheap digs in Quincy, Dorchester, Roxbury and many other local neighborhoods.
This seems just opposition to change because it is change – and more than likely some mom-and-pop landlords who would just hate to lose all those profitable students.
A Fork In The Road
As they calculate whether to finally take the dorm plunge, or continue their dithering, UMass-Boston officials face a major fork in the road.
The university has already laid out an ambitious expansion plan – embracing dorms is the next, logical step.
A strong, four-year university, one that has dorms and a full program of college life, could be a boon to Boston and to Dorchester as well, setting the stage for years of new development and expansion.
The opportunity is there for the taking
The question right now is whether Boston’s only public university has the guts to defy the neighborhood loudmouths and bullies and seize its destiny.
Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
