Harvard Considering Plans To Develop on Church St.

Harvard is tentatively considering a plan which could make Church St. a "new gateway" to the School of Education and Radcliffe Yard.

L. Gard Wiggins, Administrative Vice President, said yesterday that University planners are discussing ways of developing 31,000 square feet of land on Church St. of which Harvard is a joint owner. He emphasized that plans have not yet passed beyond the "idea" stage, but one alternative calls for the construction of a new Ed School building on the site.

No Front Door

Such a building would in effect make Church St. an entrance to to the Ed School, which now lacks a real front door. Now on the property are the Church St. Garage and the Charles Warren Center for American History. The two contiguous buildings are separated from the Ed School by Farwell Place.

Pedestrian Mall

Wiggins said that if Harvard constructed an addition to the Ed School, it might also consider building a pedestrian mall along Church St. like the one surrounding Holyoke Center. Another alternative under discussion is an enlarged parking facility, which would serve University personnel the way the Church St. Garage now serves shoppers.

The property is now owned by the Church St. Corporation, of which Harvard is one member. The other members are the Harvard Trust Company, the Harvard Coop, and Radcliffe College, and Harvard cannot make any plans for the area without their cooperation. Wiggins said that no formal negotiations have started either within the Corporation, or with other property owners on Church St. He added that Harvard has no immediate plans to buy any other property on the street.

Formal planning will not begin for "several years," Wiggins said--perhaps as many as eight. He noted that Harvard is now committed to several other expensive higher-priority projects, such as the Cambridge St. underpass, the science fund drive, and the Kennedy Library complex.

The Warren Center occupies one of the two buildings on the property, the yellow frame house which used to be the Community Services building. That location was meant to be only temporary when the Center was established last fall; no one is sure where the Center will go if and when the site is developed.