10 Stories is Too Tall for Allston?

Boston Globe Editorial

December 19, 2007
HARVARD'S new president, Drew Faust, may be proceeding at a more deliberate pace than predecessor Lawrence Summers did on the expansion of the university into Allston. Even so, a milestone was passed late last month when the university agreed to a land swap with the 213-unit Charlesview affordable-housing complex at the Barry's Corner intersection. This acquisition will give Harvard the land necessary to make Barry's Corner the heart of a new campus that is attractive to both students and neighbors.
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The university will provide the site and pay for the construction of a new Charlesview complex a half-mile away, and give the developer of that project enough land to build a total of 400 units. The Charlesview move will not be finalized until approvals for the other housing are in place. Since Allston needs extra housing, this might seem to be an easy transaction, but as with all matters to do with the Harvard expansion, it will take time.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority will review the projects, with plenty of neighborhood input. Some of the neighbors would prefer to see the low-income housing spread out, rather then concentrated in one place. But would Charlesview residents want to be scattered about the neighborhood? A straight land swap seems simplest.

Some neighbors worry that, at 10 stories, one of the buildings in the developer's preliminary plan is too high for the predominantly two- or three-story neighborhood. Community Builders, the developer, hasn't made its finished plan public. Height is not necessarily bad, but the design has to be superb to justify it here. The BRA needs to make sure that whatever is built enhances the neighborhood.

Acquisition of the Charlesview site would give Harvard a strong presence at Barry's Corner, now a jumble of convenience stores and gas stations. Once the university has secured this land, it can devise a comprehensive plan for a series of public spaces, such as a museum or theater, restaurants, community meeting rooms, and shops. Harvard should seek to make the intersection a venue for town-gown mingling.

"I can own a project and look at it in a deliberative way," Faust said recently in a Globe interview. She denied last week that her careful approach to Allston meant that the entire project was being slowed down. And there is no change in the university's plan (subject to a cooperation agreement with the city) to break ground on the science complex long planned for Western Avenue early next year.

The next phases of the expansion will require all of Faust's deliberative planning and diplomatic skills to satisfy the varied constituencies of both the university and the neighborhood. The leadership of Charlesview first met with Summers nearly five years ago to begin negotiations about the land swap. An enlivened, exciting Barry's Corner will be worth the wait.

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