This photo rendering depicts the restored Modern Theatre in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. Suffolk University has proposed a 12-story dormitory for the site
Suffolk University presented plans Thursday night for a 100,000-square-foot building on Boston’s Beacon Hill and a 12-story dormitory in Downtown Crossing.
The Suffolk Task Force heard details about the school’s expansion as it seeks approval to house a greater share of its undergraduate students and increase its academic space. The 18-member, multi-neighborhood panel was created to advise Mayor Thomas M. Menino on the university’s proposed growth.
The presentations come one year after the Beacon Hill neighborhood and Menino rejected a proposed 22-story dormitory at the former Metropolitan District Commission headquarters at 20 Somerset St. As an alternative, Alex Krieger, a principal at Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, a Cambridge-based architectural firm, provided details for academic space at the Beacon Hill location.
Under the proposal, an 8-story, glass-and-concrete tower would replace the former MDC facility. It would be the new home for Suffolk’s New England School of Art and Design. Suffolk intends to move its art school from cramped quarters in the Back Bay to Beacon Hill.
The tower would offer about 60,000 square feet of classroom, arts and staff space overlooking the Garden of Peace, a tiny memorial park commemorating homicide victims adjacent to the plaza at 100 Cambridge St. Krieger noted that the new building’s height will not be taller than the existing facility.
The two-hour session featured a testy exchange between Krieger and Robert Whitney, a task force member and Beacon Hill resident. Whitney raised questions about how Suffolk arrived at the new facility’s square footage.
“This is different from what was set forth in the draft plan,” he said. “My understanding was that half the building would be allocated for the arts school. How much of the total space is for the art school and how much of the classroom space is not for the arts school? I’m just trying to figure out what the numbers are.”
A frustrated Krieger replied, “Excuse me, why don’t you take out a pencil? No single academic program offers classrooms 24/7. It’s foolish to assign all classrooms to one use.”
Krieger then specified how much space was to be used for administration, classrooms, fine arts and graphs, and journalism. “Maybe we were not clear enough to describe the difference between net and gross square footage,” he said.
But Whitney insisted that in earlier discussions, officials said the arts school would get about half the space.
‘Beautiful’ Façade
Adrian Lebuffe, an architect at CBT Architects, presented the latest plans for redevelopment of the former Modern Theatre on lower Washington Street in the downtown.
If approved, the dilapidated movie house would be restored and a 12-story tower would be built at the rear to accommodate 180 dorm beds. The project would include restoration of the historic façade of the Modern Theatre. Ground-floor uses would a two-story theater and art gallery/display area. Upper-floor uses would offer residences for undergraduate students.
“We will take the Modern’s beautiful vaudeville façade and make that the entrance just for the theater,” he said. “We are working with a number of groups to design the theater to make it work for as many interested parties as possible.”
Earlier this month, Suffolk opened dorms at a failed condominium residence at 10 West St. around the corner from the Modern. The residence hall, which will accommodate 274 undergraduates in suites and apartments, also will feature an upscale coffee shop and a restaurant on the street level.
The new building is expected to be an important component of Suffolk’s student housing program and help support Menino’s goal of encouraging institutions to house more of their students. The 10 West St. facility will be the school’s third residence hall.
Suffolk began housing students in 1996 with the opening of the 150 Tremont St. residence hall, near 10 West St. With that addition, the onetime commuter school can now house more than 1,000 students – nearly 25 percent of its undergraduates.
Under an agreement with the city to build 10 West St., the school has agreed not to seek any more housing for its students in Downtown Crossing. While many residents have insisted that students be moved from the community into dormitories, fights often erupt when schools make plans for dorms in the neighborhoods.
Jane Forristall, a task force member from the West End, said she found it difficult to ask questions because several Suffolk expansion sites are not for sale, including the Charles F. Hurley Building in Government Center.
One of the ideas that have been floated by Suffolk officials for the school’s growth is the possibility of purchasing the sprawling Hurley campus at Cambridge and Staniford streets. Critics have called the 340,000-square-foot concrete facility, which is not for sale, Boston’s ugliest office building. If razed, the space would be big enough to create a new campus for Suffolk.
“Some of these locations are very close to the West End, but I don’t even know what to ask since discussion of this property is not on the table,” she said.
