By Katie Robidoux, News Staff
Northeastern Senior Vice President of Administration and Finance Jack McCarthy gave a presentation at yesterday’s Faculty Senate meeting on the proposed plan to construct a new dormitory building to take the place of the current rear YMCA building.
The prospect of building a new dormitory has been discussed for quite some time as the university needs to expand by at least 600 on-campus bed spaces in order to make the requirement that all freshmen and sophomore students live on campus.
Northeastern’s efforts to build the new dormitory are a result of a commitment the university made to the city of Boston in 2006 to house 1,800 more students on campus. The construction of International Village, which contains 1,200 beds, filled part of that quota.
“The number of locations was fairly limited, and in fact the YMCA offered the most attractive opportunity overall,” McCarthy said at the meeting.
No official purchase and sale agreement has been signed by the YMCA or Northeastern, but an unofficial agreement has been reached for Phoenix Property Company to buy the Hastings Wing and the St. Botolph’s frontage for $21.5 million, according to an Oct. 22 statement from Northeastern. The YMCA will retain the iconic front portion of the building facing Huntington Avenue.
Phoenix plans to invest an additional $75 million to build a 17-story dormitory containing 590 beds in dorm-style rooms and 130 beds in apartment-style rooms. Northeastern will then lease the building from Phoenix, with the opportunity to purchase the building at an unspecified later date.
The building will create a total of 721 new bed spaces for undergraduate students. Floors 2 through 12 will be dorm-style living spaces, while floors 13 through 16 will be apartment style.
The proposal recently came under fire from almost 1,000 YMCA members who said they were not consulted on what they believe was a backroom deal shrouded in secrecy. They are afraid the building will be sold and demolition will begin before the new gym and community facilities have been built, according to a Feb. 10 article in The News.
“There’s going to be this big void, and it’s going to be devastating to the members,” Calvin Arey said in the Feb. 10 article. Arey is a 14-year member of the YMCA and lead organizer a petition to stop the construction of the dorm.
“We feel, in this particular case, that Northeastern is the bad guy … they have pushed hard to put this on fast track,” Arey said. “The members are just being steamrolled.”
While negotiations of agreements are ongoing, McCarthy stated the goal to have demolition on the existing site begin in June. Completion of the proposed dorm building is scheduled for fall 2013.
