Knafel Center Seeks Community Approval

Harvard's Knafel Center for the social sciences has been on the drawing board for two years, but local residents' opposition has forced numerous changes in the planning.

Now, armed with nearly complete architectural plans, Harvard officials are about to begin seeking formal community approval for Knafel.

Still, more compromises with local groups are likely to be made before the predicted start of construction sometime after 2001.

The project, which began with a $2.1 million gift to the University from Sidney R. Knafel '52, will allow Harvard to consolidate the government department and all of its centers for international study.

The planned center would free up space in Littauer Hall for the economics department and should increase Faculty interaction within the social sciences.

"The Knafel center will allow international study faculty to remain within their centers and still not be remote from their department," explains Mary H. Power, Harvard's director of community relations for Cambridge. "Faculty presence is crucial to the vitality of the centers."

Knafel: the early years

Soon after Knafel's donation, Harvard representatives began speaking to residents around what was then the proposed site--an unoccupied area around Gund Hall.

Residents objected to this plan, saying it created a building much larger than those in the vicinity and in the process destroyed a garden space behind Gund.

To placate those neighbors, in 1998 Harvard unveiled an alternate plan. This scheme, which is still the one on the table, would begin by demolishing Coolidge Hall, as well as the University Information Services (UIS) building across Cambridge Street.

Two new buildings would rise on the sites, linked by a tunnel under the street.

Architectural plans shifted as well to accommodate neighbors' concerns, especially those about the height of the building.

The new plan calls for the building on the north side of Cambridge Street to have a "stepped" roof, graduating from three stories in the middle to only one on the side abutting the street.

These changes were made with the intent of "respecting the neighborhood scale," Power says.

Community Planning

Harvard's next step is to get these changes approved by a host of city bodies designed to monitor development.

In December, Harvard will start the process by calling a neighborhood meeting to show off the finalized plan and answer questions.

Then, officials will face the Cambridge Historical Commission, the mid-Cambrdge Conservation District, the City Planning Commission and the City Council, selling parts of the plan to each.

The City Council will only be concerned with the tunnel under Cambridge Street. However, if Harvard can't get the approval of any of the other boards--which are concerned with issues including the destruction of Coolidge Hall and the moving of several houses on the site--then that dispute will be referred to the council as well.

Building cannot begin until the approval of all these bodies is secured.

Although segments of the plan for the Knafel center remain controversial in the community, University administrators are confident that the building will go up. Mary H. Power says she believes Harvard's early community meetings, which began in 1997, and flexibility have made for a more receptive community.

"This is an example of Harvard really listening to neighborhood concerns," Power says.

Often in the past, town/gown relations were strained by Harvard's lack of communication, says the Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, Charles M. Sullivan.

"There was a time not too long ago, when Harvard would go ahead and build whenever they had a right to build," Sullivan says.

Zewinski and Power say the biggest resident concern remaining has to do with the intensified use of the Coolidge Hall and UIS plots.

"It's just a bigger building and there will be more people," says David A. Zewinski, the associate dean for physical resources and planning

And what if Harvard's plans can't get final approval from the city?

"Then it's back to the drawing board," Zewinski says.

Zewinski says, however, that Harvard's accommodation of community concerns should make this outcome unlikely.

Administrative Hassles

Although the architectural plans for the Knafel center are on the verge of being finalized, the prospect of construction still remains far in the future. Even if Harvard successfully navigates the public approval process, a huge task of construction and relocation remains.

UIS still must find a new space, Zewinski explains--and the process of looking for a new location and moving there will likely last until 2001.

Money also remains something of an issue to the Knafel project. With the site change, the scope of the project has changed, Power says.

"Knafel's donation will no longer be enough to fund the project," Power says.