University Finalizes Plans for Mission Hill Land Sale

For over a decade, Harvard has been trying to relinquish its ownership of 9.6 acres of land in the Boston neighborhood of Mission Hill. Now, after years spent working to make the sale viable, the final stages of the transfer are finally near completion.

Once One Brigham Circle is sold, Harvard will no longer own any property in Mission Hill, located south of Harvard's Longwood campus. The University sold off another holding--a large apartment complex--to a tenant association in 1999.

The land known as the "ledge site" is currently occupied by a small retail strip made up of a bank, drugstore, and a dry cleaning establishment.

Development plans include allotting space for a grocery store, offices, shops and restaurants, as well as building a large parking garage. An undeveloped portion of the site will be turned into a park for local residents.

Harvard's buyer, Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS), developed the design after a long planning process with community members.

"The community created this plan," says James Hoffman, executive director of NHS, a non-profit organization that develops low income housing and conducts community and economic planning.

The plan has been strongly endorsed by Harvard officials who say it has the potential to revitalize the Mission Hill area.

"Brigham Circle is very important to the general health of the surrounding residential community," said Eric Buehrens, associate dean for planning and real estate at the Harvard Medical School (HMS). "This project, by preserving and enhancing the retail operations in the community, is going to be a valuable addition to the overall economic vitality of the area."

Proponents say the proposed development will transform the area into a more vibrant sector for the public.

"The idea is to bring back the idea of the neighborhood shopping district, where after work people can stop by to pick up things at the grocery store, or maybe drop off dry cleaning," says Maggie Cohn, who serves as executive director of the Mission Hill Main Streets program, a group focused on improving small business areas.

The new retail area will include a "Village Square"--a pedestrian plaza among the retail stores containing benches and ornamental paving as well as outdoor seating for restaurants with views of the downtown Boston skyline.

Cohn says she hopes the new development will change existing attitudes about the area.

The Mission Hill area has been plagued by crime and drug problems in the past and remains one of Boston's poorer neighborhoods.

"I think what this will do is put a better face on Mission Hill, so that the impression that people who don't live here have will be in keeping with what the neighborhood is really like," Cohn said.

Moving Out

While it may seem unnatural for Harvard--which spent much of the last decade scooping up real estate in the Boston neighborhood of Allston--to sell a large portion of land next to its currently expanding medical school, University officials say that Harvard has no use for this land.

"We're disposing of the property because it's property we don't need," Buehrens says.

Residents say Harvard would have encountered strong opposition if it had tried to develop the site for its own purposes. Cohn speculates that this opposition might have motivated the sale.

"They may look at this as, 'We can't use this for institutional construction because we'll get our heads handed to us, so it really is of no use to us, so lets give it back to the neighborhood and let them use it,'" Cohn says.

Even as Harvard sells the land, however, the divestment is only partial--the University-affiliated Partners HealthCare Corporation will become the main occupant of the office space on the site.

But University officials say they have no plans to use any of the site directly after the sale.

"We don't anticipate getting any uses out of it," Buehrens says. "Maybe in the future we may rent some office space, but there's nothing on the immediate horizons."

Harvard officials maintain that their primary objective is to allow the community to use the land for its own purposes.

The University first moved to sell the ledge site in 1989, beginning negotiations with NHS. Over the next five years, the University and NHS held a series of community planning meetings to develop the residents' vision for the site. But a stalling real estate market brought the process to a standstill, as NHS couldn't find tenants to commit to the area.

"We thought we had a deal, but the real estate market in Boston took a turn for the worst and no one in the private sector was interested in participating," Buehrens said.

Then, in 1999, NHS found a client in Partners HealthCare.

"We didn't start out with, 'Let's build some office space,'" Hoffman says. "We started with wanting to revitalize this site in our neighborhood, and we wanted to see how we could do that while getting a number of community benefits."

Now, NHS, working together with the Northland Development Co., awaits the approval of the Boston Redevelopment Authority to go ahead with its development plan. A decision is expected this spring, with construction planned to begin in the fall.

The View From Mission Hill

Community members are strongly in favor of the plan to develop the area, with many submitting letters to the BRA praising the project.

Under Harvard's control, the site has languished, with graffiti covering the rocky ledge leading up to the area.

"This site needs to be developed," said John H. Clifford, a Mission Hill resident. "The stores will be great. It will be nice to clean it up."

But even after years of community planning, some residents say they still question certain aspects of the plan.

"Traffic and parking are the main concerns," says one resident. "It's already a very busy area."

If the plan goes ahead, the parking garage will provide space for 255 cars with an additional 130 spaces outside.

Others doubt the feasibility of transforming the undeveloped land on th site into a park. According to Hoffman, the development group is investing $500,000 into creating and maintaining the planned park, with the city of Boston offering $75,000 more from a grant fund.

Opponents say that is not enough to actually maintain the park, and that they doubt that NHS will keep its commitments to the land.

But while some object to the sale, Buehrens says, on the whole, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

"I don't think that in any community you'll ever find unanimous opinions, but by in large, over the course of a number of years, the general idea of redeveloping the ledge site has been a very popular idea, and I think in general this project has the support of the majority of the Mission Hill community," he says.