Work Team To Provide Recommendations on Harvard's Allston Construction by Mid-2011

The Allston Work Team will present a set of recommendations for Harvard’s $1 billion expansion in Allston by the middle of next year, according to University Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp.

But what shape those recommendations will take—or how specific they will be—remains unclear at this time.

The University shelved its initial, highly ambitious plans for development in Allston because of fiscal constraints and has now started to put in place a new set of objectives. Lapp, who is responsible for overseeing the project’s future, has not specified what the new plan will entail.

“The progress made to date suggests that by mid-2011, the Work Team will be able to bring recommendations to University leadership,” Lapp wrote in a statement.

Construction in Allston has been frozen since December 2009. Allston residents have said they have felt excluded from the planning process.

“No one in Allston or Brighton has any idea how that planning process is going,” Allston resident Harry Mattison said. “Harvard has been incredibly opaque about the whole thing. Maybe it’s because they have nothing to tell us.”

The City of Boston is also anxious to see a resumption of construction on Harvard’s Allston properties, which will largely be dedicated to science research.

“Harvard is aware of our hopes to see the Science Complex construction resume as soon as possible, and we are pleased that they have hired a couple of real estate firms to seek a development partner,” wrote Bos

ton Redevelopment Association spokesperson Jessica Shumaker in an e-mailed statement.

Harvard’s planning efforts have been occurring under the auspices of the Allston Work Team which, according to Lapp, has “been focused on analyzing ways in which the University’s growth needs can be addressed, structurally as well as financially, with a program that fully integrates a vision for Allston.”

To this end, the Work Team has visited peer institutions engaged in similar construction projects, hosted a panel discussion with real estate experts, and, most recently, hired external development consultants Leggat McCall and McCall & Almy to advise on current market conditions.

With the input of its consultants, the Work Team is considering developing the property in stages or possibly co-developing the property with another private institution, according to Lapp.

“[The consultants] are helping us figuring out a staged process, what’s viable today, what’s the next step,” Lapp said in an interview earlier this month.

University President Drew G. Faust created the Work Team to advise on the University’s development in Allston in the wake of last December’s indefinite halt on construction on the Allston Science Complex.

Faust declined to comment for this story.

Construction of the Science Complex—a $1 billion project billed as a mecca of stem cell research and the nexus of Harvard’s Allston campus—was stopped due to economic constraints caused by the financial crisis.

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sofia E. Groopman can be reached at segroopm@fas.harvard.edu.