Harvard To Help Build Fenway Development

In an effort to relieve the graduate student housing crunch, the University will purchase 170 apartment units in a Fenway area apartment complex that is currently under construction.

Students at Harvard Medical School, the Dental School and the School of Public Health will be the primary beneficiaries of the new housing.

“The motivation around the involvement in this project is to create housing for our students,” Director of Boston Community Relations Kevin A. McCluskey ’76 said.

The project is slated to be completed in Spring 2006 and will help Harvard reach the goal of housing 50 percent of its graduate, professional and medical students, according to Harvard spokesperson Lauren Marshall.

“[The units] will help us maintain a strong residential campus, as well as relieve the pressure on the local housing market,” Marshall said.

Harvard officials would not disclose the amount to be invested, but Marshall said that the University is paying “a proportionate share of ownership of the residential portion of the building.”

The $200 million dollar Residences at Fenway—planned as three towers of varying heights with a triangle-shaped building at the center—will have 50,000 square feet of retail space, out of a total 651,000 square feet.

410 other non-Harvard units will make up the rest of the Residences.

Those units belonging to Harvard will have their own lobby.

By deciding to purchase one of the buildings, the University adheres to its commitment to house as many of its students as possible—a request Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino made to Harvard and other area universities.

The University’s involvement in the project is also “another positive milestone in a relationship” with the city, according to McCluskey.

“Positive milestones” are more important than ever for Harvard, which will require friends in Boston City Hall if it is to develop the University’s campus of the future in Allston.

The University has also worked to smooth relations with Menino, which were strained when Harvard opted not to expand its Longwood campus into Crosstown, an adjoinging neighborhood in which Menino hoped Harvard would stimulate growth.

Harvard’s funding allows the complex’s developer, Fenway Ventures, to go forward with the project.

Lack of funding and a soft housing market had stalled the complex’s creation despite its approval in March of 2002.

Steven B. Samuels, a partner at Fenway Ventures, said he was looking forward to adding Harvard to the apartment complex.

“We think the University will be a great neighbor and that it will be quite a long-term benefit for the Fenway neighborhood and the revitalization of the Boylston Street corridor,” he said.