Northeastern University presented updates to the 262 St. Botolph Street Multipurpose Athletic Facility to the Boston Civic Design Commission — Design Committee B for review and public testimony Oct. 22. The project is intended to replace the 114-year-old Matthews Arena as a priority of Northeastern’s 10-year Institutional Master Plan, or IMP. Matthews Arena currently holds hockey and basketball games, commencement ceremonies and various community events. With the new facility, the university plans to expand its purposes through four distinct sections — an arena, a turf, a basketball court and a student recreational space. 

“[The sections] don’t really fit on the site in a conventional manner, so we’ve been required to fit it on this in a stack manner, which we think is very exciting,” said Bryan Schabel, a design director at Perkins & Will, the architecture and design firm spearheading the project. 

According to the current design, student-focused centers — the recreational space and the turf — would be nestled vertically above the lobby on the side of the building facing the Gainsborough Garage, while the athlete-focused centers — the arena and basketball court — would be located on the opposite side.

“We’re really unaware of any similar mix of an arena or event space with a rec component of this scale, so we think we’re trying to seize this opportunity,” Schabel said.

The existing arena is a Boston sports landmark, and the Boston Bruins used it as recently as October to reveal Centennial jerseys in the team’s original home. However, Northeastern, which acquired Matthews Arena in 1979, intends to take a different approach with the design of its new facility, focusing on the many purposes of the building.

“We’re going to look at how not to make it look and feel like when you arrive to the lobby, that you’re entering an athletic facility,” said Northeastern Associate Vice President for Campus Planning and Design Viktorija Abolina.

The lobby, one of three main entrances to the building, is proposed to be located on the Gainsborough Street side of the property and include screens that can be changed to reflect various events. This entrance will also include an outdoor queuing area for events, according to the IMP. The other queuing area, located along St. Botolph Street, holds much of the university branding for the site, including a “HUSKIES” sculpture, which would double as seating, and a red backdrop detailing a combined history of Northeastern, its athletics, students and the location. Details on how visitors will be able to distinguish between the different entrances are still in progress, Schabel said.

“There’s great stories about what has happened at this site, so we know that that’s already there and we can use that, but we also want to highlight student success stories or just student stories in general, as well as athletic stories,” Schabel said.

The facility’s design of the 115-foot tall, 290,000 square-foot arena is much larger than the existing building, which stands at 107,000 square feet. With this plan, Northeastern seeks to expand the footprint of its facilities closer to the property lines, eliminating parking lots currently at the site and utilizing the building’s unique design opportunity to create public space outdoors.

Despite the increase in overall size, the indoor arena itself would only be 40 feet high and hold approximately 4,000 spectators during hockey and basketball games, down from its current height of 65 feet and capacity of 5,066 for basketball and 4,666 for hockey.

“I worry that it’s lost its sense of being celebrating the athleticism of the activities and it feels like everything’s kind of been fit in, in a way that may be limiting,” said William Rawn, a member of Design Committee B and architect.

Despite concerns from Rawn regarding the building’s height and the limitations it brings, Northeastern hopes to keep the overall structure a similar height to that of the surrounding buildings.

While the building may fit into the community based on its size, its design faced many critiques from the committee in terms of its physical appearance. The current building design is set as manganese ironspot brick, giving it an overall gray appearance. Schabel said the designers like the material for its smoothness and depth and said it is “elegant and appropriate for this building,” drawing inspiration from the University of Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art. Although the designers took into account previous comments about adding texture, implementing four different textures for each part of the building, they’ve maintained the gray palette despite alternative suggestions.

“This is going to be my gateway view into Northeastern and I’m just worried about it, frankly. I’m worried that the building is going to be dark, gray and very solid-feeling, and this is not a welcoming view in my mind,” said David Hacin, a committee member and architect.

Although the material can reflect warmth in the light, Schabel said, it may present differently under less ideal conditions, such as rainy days or night time. 

“It almost made me feel like you really wish this was a metal building rather than a brick building,” Hacin said.

Schabel said Northeastern did consider a metal building at one point, but its flatness was less engaging to the public eye.

“It really does feel like a building that’s turning its back to the city,” Hacin said.

In order to increase the pedestrian appeal of the design, Northeastern has also added windows to its proposed design that have been strategically placed to minimize glare and heat gain and curving along the edges to soften its appearance. 

Alongside the other proposed projects in the IMP, Northeastern hopes to utilize the St. Botolph Street site to enhance the east end of its campus. Northeastern seeks to redevelop the Gainsborough Garage into an academic and student space and simultaneously increase access to the athletic facilities. 

The university is also “committed to sustainability and climate resiliency,” Abolina said, as it seeks to expand its arboretum and plant diversity through the redevelopments, including placing geothermal wells under St. Botolph Street. Northeastern also hopes to reuse as much of the existing foundation of Matthews Arena as possible, Schabel said.

However, Northeastern is not the only organization designers are thinking about in regards to construction in the area. Designers also must consider the New England Conservatory, residential spaces and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, all of which share a property line with Northeastern, and will incorporate these spaces’ needs and future plans into its designs, according to Schabel.

Now in the Design Development stage of planning, the multipurpose facility has made great progress on its general structural and functional components, but still has much work to be done regarding the details. 

“It feels like the architecture is intending to disguise the fact that there is an arena in the building, when in fact, that’s what’s the most exciting thing about it,” Hacin said.