FAS Will Purchase Gulf Station Site From HRE

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will purchase the former Gulf Station site from Harvard Real Estate (HRE) for $3 million, Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence announced yesterday at a meeting of the full Faculty.

But Spence declined to specify what FAS planned to do with the land, located across from the Harvard Union, saying that the decision would require further discussion.

It is not clear if FAS will go through with an HRE plan to build a hotel on the property, but Spence said he thought it was "strategically important to the FAS to feel that we will be able to use the site."

"My feeling now is that unless something unforeseen and dramatic happens, the principle that it ought to be used by the FAS is acceptable to the central administration," Spence said.

FAS controls all dormitories and academic facilities belonging to the University, while HRE manages Harvard's extensive non-academic holdings, including the Gulf site.

Vice President for Administration Sally Zeckhauser, a member of HRE's governing board, said yesterday that she knew nothing about the sale, although Spence said he had negotiated the sale with her. HRE President Kristin S. Demong could not be reached for comment.

FAS' decision to purchase the land follows nearly a year of debate from within the University and by the Cambridge community over appropriate uses for the site.

A year ago, HRE announced a plan to build a five-story "limited service" hotel on the site.

But last December, that plan ran into unexpected opposition when the full Faculty overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the University to use the property--located directly across the street from Widener and Lamont Libraries--for another library or to ease a shortage of faculty offices.

In addition, community activists have argued that the proposed hotel would increase traffic in Harvard Square area and destroy the character of the area's neighborhoods. A downzoning petition currently before the City Council would halt that project by severly limiting the maximum height and floor area of buildings in the area.

In December, Spence appointed a three-member faculty committee to examine alternatives to the hotel proposal. After an investigation, the panel recommended that FAS purchase the land, according to committee member Brendan A. Maher, the dean-designate of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

"We determined that because of its location, it should be acquired by the FAS for the purposes of the FAS," Maher said of the committee's report. "We also decided that given the large number of competing uses for the site, there should be serious and fairly extended discussion about the pros and cons of all the various uses."

Spence said last week that he followed the panel's recommendations andarranged to purchase the site from HRE withoutwaiting for a final report.

"We sort of urged that this be done as quicklyas possible," Maher said. "Especially withsufficient timeliness that it still remains in thehands of FAS to decide what to do with it at all."

Spence said that he would "deal with [thedownzoning] on a day-to-day basis."

Spence said the debate over the Gulf Stationhelped FAS and the University redefine principlesof land purchase and use and said the Universitywould give more attention to FAS' space concernsin the future.

Coolidge Professor of History David S.Landes,the faculty committee's chair, was not availablefor comment on the decision. Maher said that afterLandes review it, the report will be made formal.

Matthew M. Hoffman contributed to thereporting of this story.