Community Gives Reluctant Nod to Hotel

In the wake of Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence's decision to approve a plan for a commercial "inn" on the former Gulf station site on Mass Ave., community residents are displaying an uncharacteristic attitude of clam resignation.

Many who opposed the hotel last spring--and successfully fought for a zoning change to limit the size of new construction on the site--said yesterday that even though they still disapprove of the plan, they can live with it.

"There's no point in getting bent out of shape over one project," said R. Phillip Dowds, a member of the Harvard Square Defense Fund.

But Dowds said such development represents a pattern that will have an adverse effect on the neighborhood in the long run.

The larger problem, he said, is that the Square's zoning would allow for other projects like the proposed hotel. "The trend is an ominous one," he said.

"If Harvard keeps on [buying property in the neighborhood] at the rate it has been over the last 15 years, it will own all of Harvard Square by the middle of the next century," Dowds said.

John R. Pitkin, chair of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association, said an inn on the Gulf Station site would give the area a more commercial flavor.

"Harvard Square is becoming more and more a tourist destination," Pitkin said. "A hotel will bring that towards the east end of the Square."

Peter D. Kinder, a board member of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association and vice president of the Harvard Square Defense Fund, said he believes a hotel will severely damage traffic flow in the Square.

Kinder said the Gulf station site is in an awkward position for traffic generally. "There is no convienent way to get there," Kinder said. "It's like trying to explain how to get from Cambridge to Boston using side streets."

The University's central administration originally planned a larger hotel on the site but agreed to turn the matter over to Spence after members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) complained that they were not consulted about the plans. They maintained that Harvard should build a library or office building on the site, instead of a hotel.

Last week, however, Spence ruled that the central administration should go ahead with the hotel plan, saying FAS would purchase the property and convert it to office space in 15 years.

The original author of the new zoning, Terry R. Crystal of the East Harvard Square Neighborhood Association, said she was "not surprised" that the University still plans to build the hotel. She added that she hoped the hotel would be a small one.

"I hope they leave a lot of green space around it," she said. "It would be nice to have some green space open to the public."

And Kinder said he also doubts that the University will convert the hotel for academic use, as Spence maintains.

"The idea that they would rip out 100 bathrooms to change it to academic use it pretty funny," Kinder said.

Matthew M. Hoffman contributed to the reporting of this story.