Rendering: Sasaki Associates. Click for interactive map

On December 5, 2007, Boston College filed a 10-year “institutional master plan” with the City of Boston that projects a $1.6 billion investment in facilities, new faculty, and more than a dozen new academic centers and institutes, including a School of Theology and Ministry. The submitted document, which focuses on land and facilities changes for which Boston’s approval is needed, was developed from the so-called Strategic Academic Plan that Boston College designed over the past three years, which projects growth in the liberal arts, student development programs, international involvement, and in a range of interdisciplinary research and teaching programs, among other goals.

The decennial filing, which set in motion a public comment and hearing period of several months, earmarks $800 million for construction and renovation of campus buildings (see map), with $700 million of that going to new construction. Four new academic buildings are slated for the Middle Campus: Stokes Commons, an 85,000-square-foot interim student center and dining hall; a 125,000-square-foot humanities building; a 75,000-square-foot building to house the Graduate School of Social Work and the Connell School of Nursing; and a 100,000-square-foot Institute for Integrated Sciences. The University plans to renovate Carney Hall and demolish McElroy Commons and Cushing Hall to make way for the new construction.

On Lower Campus, plans include a 200,000-square-foot recreation and fitness facility on the site of Edmond’s Hall; and a 285,000-square-foot university center, near the current site of the Flynn Recreation Complex, with space for 230 student organizations as well as dining facilities and the Boston College Bookstore.

New residence halls are indicated for three locations on Lower Campus: on the site of More Hall, along the northern edge of Shea Field, and on land now occupied by the northernmost group of Mods. Residence hall construction and renovations outlined in the master plan would result in an increase of 610 campus beds, enough to bring half of current off-campus students into University housing. At the conclusion of the 10-year period, more than 90 percent of undergraduates would be living in BC housing.

Many of the master plan’s proposals were made possible by the acquisition of the 65-acre Brighton Campus from the Archdiocese of Boston. The plan calls for residence halls in the interior of that campus, as well as along Commonwealth Avenue across from the current More Hall site—together housing 500 students. A fine arts district, with buildings that would house the McMullen Museum of Art, a 1,200-seat auditorium, and academic space, is planned further east on Commonwealth.

For the northern tier of the Brighton Campus, the University has proposed a 1,500-seat baseball field, a 500-seat softball field, a parking facility, an underground field house, and two multipurpose fields.

The plan notes that the new and upgraded facilities are necessary to put in place strengthened student formation programs and a surge in hiring that will bring up to 100 new faculty to Boston College—for a total of 775—with the greatest share working in the humanities and natural sciences. Among the listed new centers and institutes that will be supported through investments in faculty and facilities are the Institute for Liberal Arts and the Institute for Integrated Sciences, both of which will promote interdisciplinary teaching and research; a long-called-for Center for Undergraduate Advising; a Center for Student Formation; an Institute on Aging in the 21st Century; and a Center for Catholic Education, to serve as a think tank for administrators.

The campus master plan was developed by Sasaki Associates, a Cambridge firm, whose institutional clients include Princeton University, University of Chicago, and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The Boston Globe reported that a $1 billion fundraising campaign will support the University’s strategic plan. Boston College officials say that while a campaign is in the planning stages, its goal has not yet been determined and will depend on how many dollars are raised before a public announcement of the effort is made, likely within the next 18 months.

While news of the plan was greeted with enthusiasm on campus, the Heights editorializing that the University “stands poised to enter the top tier of American colleges,” not all of those affected by the plan were eager to applaud. At two public meetings held to introduce the plan to residents in Allston and Brighton, attendees from the community asked for guarantees for open space on the Brighton Campus beyond the 10-year scope of the master plan, and protested the intent to place undergraduate dormitories on that campus, saying the University ought to retain Edmond’s Hall and build more densely in the area now occupied by the Mods. Boston College has responded that the the 33-year-old, nine-story Edmond’s was not designed for, or able to accommodate, the University’s focus on student formation as a feature of the Boston College educational experience, and that the Lower Campus, which will, under the new plan, remain the most densely populated area of the campus, housing 3,276 students, also needs open space. A longer-range plan calls for the demolition of all Mods and the development of an academic quad on the Lower Campus within the next 20 years. Since the approval process depends on negotiation among a number of parties, there is no way to predict when it will conclude.

Read more by Tim Czerwienski