Current students could see new housing

The Institutional Master Plan (IMP) has graced the Heights' pages many times, but how will it actually affect the students who currently attend Boston College?

The IMP - a 10-year plan that proposed scores of physical changes to BC's Middle, Lower, and Brighton campuses - has been approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the Boston Zoning Commission, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Since these important hurdles were surpassed this summer, some students have asked, "When will we see a new Rec Plex? A student center? New academic buildings?"

The most important questions, though, are when and how the plan will affect on-campus and University-controlled housing.

Eventually, BC hopes to construct 470 beds on the More Hall site, 110 beds at the current location of the Mods, 550 beds on Shea Field, and 150 beds on Brighton Campus (the Brighton Campus beds, however, were remanded back to the school for further study by the BRA). 2000 Commonwealth Avenue, which BC purchased last year, will add 560 beds to the plan. These new constructions and purchases will accommodate for the 110 beds that will be removed from the Mods, and for the razing of 790-bed Edmond's Hall, which University Spokesman Jack Dunn said is "in need of extensive renovations."

BC hopes that the newly-constructed residence halls will accomplish the school's long-time goal of housing 100 percent of undergraduate students in University-controlled housing. "Currently, we have 1,280 students living off campus in non-University housing," Dunn said. "Our goal is to provide housing to meet 100 percent of undergrad demand." Dunn said that since most of those students living off campus are juniors, the newly-constructed residence halls will host mostly juniors and seniors.

Dunn said the first new residence hall to be constructed will sit on the current site of More Hall, which houses University functions like human resources, University advancement, and alumni relations.

"Before we can demolish More Hall and begin building student housing, we'll have to move the people who are working in More Hall to office space on the Brighton Campus," Dunn said. "We'll have to design and renovate the office buildings on the Brighton Campus. That process will begin in 2010 and 2011, so it's going to take time for any of that to take place."

Though two years may seem too long to wait after the time-consuming steps taken to get the IMP approved by the city, the plan still has to undergo a necessary "large project review" with the BRA, which could take up to nine months to complete. Under large project review, the design of each element of the plan will need to be reviewed and approved before construction can begin. Despite this process, though, current freshmen and sophomores could see the transfer of University offices from More Hall to Brighton Campus, and the construction of 470 beds on the More Hall site, before they graduate.

In addition to the construction on the More Hall site, current students could also see the conversion of 2000 Comm. Ave into student accommodations. Restoration of the building, which will convert it from a rental property into a BC residence hall, are slated to be finished by 2012, according to the executive summary of the IMP submitted to the Boston Zoning Commission for review.

Dunn said the building's one-bedroom apartments will be converted into doubles, and its two-bedroom units into quads. In addition to these transformations, the structure's balconies will be closed down.

The other housing-related aspects of the IMP - primarily the razing of Edmond's and half of the accommodations provided by the Mods, and construction on the Mod site, Shea field, and potentially Brighton campus - are unlikely to be completed during any current student's time at BC. This is due to the extensive planning and review that still must be undertaken before building can begin. "It will be 2011 before there will be construction on campus," Dunn said.