JFK Institute May Rent Space At Low Rates to Undergraduates

The John F. Kennedy Memorial Library complex may include a "mixed-use" area of low-rent stores and offices for student organizations.

The plans for the complex are not yet definite--architect I.M. Pei will make the first land-use drawings only this month. But sources close to Pei have said that he is considering a mixed-use plan.

Pei has made public his desire to build a memorial appropriate to an urban area and his reluctance to use most of the 12-acre site for a park or plaza. He has said that controlled commercial development on the site is "quite important" to his plans for the complex.

Under one mixed-use plan, Pei might design office buildings to be built upon the memorial site, the MBTA yards across Boylston Street from Eliot House. Income from renting the upper stories to businesses would offset the cost of renting the ground floors cheaply to student organizations and local stores.

Another advantage of the mixed-use plan, sources said, is that it might finance otherwise unprofitable ventures--such as cheap parking facilities for the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected.

One plan would have a row of office buildings along Eliot Street, with ground-floor shops opening both onto the Brattle Square area and the library complex. Such buildings might include outdoor cafes, artists' supply shops, bookstores, or large restaurants.

But sources emphasized that no such plan has been decided upon, and denied magazine stories that the mixed-use idea was definite. At present, Pei intends to draw plans for the library within a year.

Since the construction of the Library is scheduled to last at least two years, the Institute of Politics will get underway before the building to house it is completed.