Airport Planner Hired for Allston

In a major centralization of Allston planning, the University has hired a new administrator to oversee development of Harvard’s future campus who will report directly to University President Lawrence H. Summers.

Christopher Gordon, who led the $4.4 billion renovation of Logan International Airport, will assume the position of chief operating officer for Allston development next month, Harvard announced yesterday.

The Harvard Planning and Allston Initiative, which currently coordinates University-wide planning, will be split in two. The Allston Initiative will be folded into the as-yet-unnamed new group led by Gordon, while Harvard Planning will deal with other University planning issues.

Kathy Spiegelman, the University’s chief planner and director of the Allston Initiative, will be “dividing” her time between the new group and Harvard Planning, according to Vice President for Administration Sally Zeckhauser. Spiegelman, who in her role as director of the Allston Initiative reported to Zeckhauser, was travelling yesterday and did not return a call for comment.

“The feeling was that as we [got] Authority—where Gordon served as director of capital programs and Logan modernization­—he oversaw the overhaul of Logan International Airport.

The project­, which debuted in 1994­­, resulted in the construction of new terminals, parking lots, and utility infrastructure.

Zeckhauser said she hoped Gordon, who is a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will also teach a class at the Design School.

­—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.