The Daily Free Press

Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: News

Boston University is looking to sew up a deep cut that divides South Campus from Commonwealth Avenue by capping the Massachusetts Turnpike and dramatically altering the campus, officials said.

Boston residents now gaze up at the looming Student Village high rises as a blueprint to the university's development plan. For a look into the future, however, the vacant air space over the Turnpike and the deteriorating bridges and beat-up streets near central campus offer long-term promise for multiuse development. BU has done a considerable amount of urban planning in the past 18 months, President Robert Brown said.

Squeezed between Storrow Drive and residential Brookline, the university has reached for the stars to increase campus space. In planning since the 1980s, on-campus residential development at the Student Village dwarfs nearby structures. The second phase of development at the Village, a dormitory rising 26 stories from street level, surpasses the first dorm's height.

Width may be the next dimension for development at BU, Brown said. For decades, the university has eyed the chasm between Commonwealth Avenue and South Campus. Mentioned briefly in Brown's 10-year strategic plan, air right development interested former BU President John Silber.

Air rights determine development plans for parcels of space the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority owns above the thruway. BU owns the land around surrounding the Turnpike, making it the "natural tenant" to lease and develop the open space above the road, Brown said.

"With the development of our campus and the cost of land in Boston, it will be, at some point in time, the natural way for us to expand the campus in width," Brown said.

The Charles River Campus Brown envisions intertwines several development projects, including adaptations of previously proposed ideas. BU officials approached neighboring Brookline last month with plans to work with the state to repair the BU Bridge, which is on the commonwealth's "expedited repair" list. A knot of one-way streets and short bridges between Cambridge, Boston and Brookline requires state and school attention, officials have said.

Last year, BU's response to the problem area was the "ellipse" - a combination green space and a transportation hub proposed by Greenberg Consultants, a Toronto-based development firm. The idea has since been squashed, Brown said.

"The traffic consultants killed the ellipse. That happens. The decision was made and I concurred at the end: the problem with the ellipse is it creates a concept of people driving pretty fast," Brown said. "It's a rotary. They said that was not the best idea for a heavy pedestrian area like the middle of our campus."

Continued...

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