Gulf Site Plans Expected Soon

Don't be fooled by the two `Gulf' signs that tower over Mass. Ave. across the street from the Harvard Union. Harvard tore down the gas station that went with the signs in December and is expected to announce plans to redevelop the site any day now.

But Harvard's delay in deciding on a new use for the Gulf station site has already proved costly. On June 5, the City Council passed a zoning change that cut by nearly 40,000 square feet the size of any new construction on the site.

Although Harvard initially threatened the city with a lawsuit over the new zoning, University officials announced earlier this month that litigation would be too expensive and would delay development of the site.

The University decided to tear down the white neo-Georgian filling station that had occupied the site for nearly 50 years last winter. At that time Harvard officials were trying to avoid the legal hassles that could ensue if the building were allowed to reach the half-century mark.

But then Harvard discovered a whole new set of hassles that have consistently kept it from taking any action.

Early in December Harvard's announced plan to build a 200-room hotel on the Gulf station lot came under bitter attack from the members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, who wanted an academic building on the site. After the faculty unanimously called on Harvard to "reconsider" the hotel plan, Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence appointed a three-member committee to look into alternate uses, and the hotel project was temporarily suspended.

Things appeared to be moving smoothly for the University in May, when Spence and President Derek C. Bok announced that FAS would eventually acquire the site for an academic purpose. But administrators did not rule out the possibility of building a hotel in the short-run.

And what the site will be used for now no one knows except Spence. It could be a hotel. It could be a library. It could be an office building. Just don't get too attached to those two `Gulf' signs.