Struggling for Space: University Looks To Expand

With plenty of money in its coffers--$15.2 billion to be exact--Harvard has forged ahead this year with ambitious construction plans, while nabbing what space it could on both sides of the Charles River.

With a bit of foresight and 14 years of patience, the College managed to acquire the Hasty Pudding Building this year without paying a dime for the three-story Holyoke Street structure.

Undergraduate leaders have expressed high hopes for the new space, which they see as an answer to the oft-cited lack of performance, social and office space for students on campus.

Harvard also plodded along with local development projects that have yet to meet Cambridge community approval. Until Harvard can begin to win neighborhood support for such construction, the space crunch on campus is expected to continue.

Pudding in its Place

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) negotiated an agreement April 4 with the graduate board of the Institute of 1770--the governing board of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, Krokodiloes and Pitches--to take ownership of the Pudding building.

FAS will soon foot the bill for massive renovations to the dilapidated building--by some accounts, likely a $10 million undertaking.

Undergraduate Council members have viewed the building as a potential answer to their pleas for a student center in recent years.

"It would be a shame if the council didn't take advantage of the opportunity," Council President Fentrice D. Driskell '01said shortly after the deal was announced.

According to David P. Illingworth '71, associate dean of the College, the building will be renovated and the theater refurbished completely for undergraduate use.

"The theater will continue to be a theater; we're going to improve it. The rest of the building, we are less certain about, maybe rehearsal space, social space or [student] offices," he said. "It's definitely going to be for students. It's not going to be teaching space."

The institute had long been in arrears to Harvard and did not have the funds to keep up the aging Pudding building or pay the back rent owed to Harvard for the land on which the building sat.

The building was assessed at a value of $1,449,100 in 1999. Harvard will forgive the institute's debt to the University as part of the agreement.

Illingworth said FAS would be willing to invest money--on the order of $25,000--to bring the building up to code if it meant undergraduates would be able to use the space next year.

But the building is in serious disrepair, and the College has hired an independent contractor to conduct a safety inspection.

If the contractor identifies hazards that would cost a large amount of money to repair, Illingworth said the College would close the building next year--shutting the Pudding building down for two years and leaving all the construction for a single period of renovation.

The College expects to take next year to plan for an overhaul of the building, and then likely begin construction in the 2001-2002 academic year.

The takeover comes at a crucial point for Harvard's undergraduate performance groups, as stage space is highly sought after and soon to grow scarcer.

Undergraduates are guaranteed access to Agassiz Theatre, owned by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, until 2004. But when the agreement between the College and Radcliffe expires, it is possible that the Institute could claim the space for itself.

But administrators at the Institute said this year that they do not foresee taking over Agassiz entirely.

"It's not part of our immediate plan," said Acting Dean of the Institute Mary Maples Dunn.

Aftermath of the Merger

Students are not the only ones who may ultimately be left looking for space by the Harvard-Radcliffe merger.

Radcliffe is set to take over Byerly Hall in 2006, when the lease runs out on the admissions offices of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

Radcliffe has plans to move in as soon as admissions moves out, which has left administrators looking for a new home for the admissions offices.

"When their time is up in Byerly, we're definitely going to take over," Dunn said.

The most likely place an admissions office could go is the currently ill-used Hemenway Gym on the edge of the Harvard Law School (HLS) campus.

HLS put $150,000 of new equipment into the gym this spring, since mostly HLS students frequent the worn building.

But the gym is owned by FAS, and with its proximity to the Yard and leafy green surroundings, Hemenway would be an ideal new home for College admissions.

"Space in close proximity to Harvard Yard is more valuable than money," said David A. Zewinski '76, associate dean for physical resources and planning in FAS.

In fact, FAS came very close to converting Hemenway to an office space for admissions and financial aid in 1998. Instead, FAS renegotiated its lease on Byerly with Radcliffe.

Though a renovated Hemenway would be too small to house the admissions offices of both the College and the GSAS, Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70-'73, director of undergraduate admissions, said there is no need for the two offices to be together.

Lewis calls Hemenway a "wonderful space that would work for us," and says Hemenway would be a "great option for admissions and financial aid."

The Radcliffe Institute also tried to reassert itself in the Cronkhite Graduate Center, a large building owned by the Institute.

Almost 150 Harvard graduate students--unaffiliated with Radcliffe--live in the building, and loudly objected to the Institute's plans to convert 75 dorm rooms into office space for the Radcliffe fellows that will arrive in Cambridge this fall.

Radcliffe ultimately capitulated for a year--sending a case of champagne to the celebrating graduate students--but renovations will begin on Cronkhite next summer.

Community Objections

Despite Harvard's success in acquiring the Pudding, the University's most ambitious current development project--the Knafel Center for Government and International Studies--made little progress this year, as Harvard administrators confronted neighbors' disapproval at every step of the way.

The University hopes the Knafel Center will promote interaction between government professors and their counterparts at Harvard's many centers for international study, leaving the Littauer Center free for the Department of Economics.

But the site the University has proposed for the building is directly beside a residential neighborhood, and denizens complained the Knafel plans present a building that is "too institutional," "too big" and "inappropriate" for the neighborhood.

Now, facing the criticism of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Conservation District Commission, a city board with the power to forbid construction, Harvard has completely redrawn its plans and faces many more months of negotiations in the neighborhood approval process.

Plans for a modern art museum on the current site of the Mahoney's Garden Center also blundered along this year, meeting with vocal disapproval from area residents when tentative plans were presented at a community meeting.

The Mahoney site is bordered by Memorial Drive, Acron Street, Banks Street and Western Avenue, and is thought to be the last swath of undeveloped Harvard land this side of the river.

Though the funding has not been secured to build the museum, famed architect Renzo Piano has signed on to the project, and the building seems to be a priority for President Neil L. Rudenstine.

And only three years after the University was criticized by a number of Boston officials and residents for anonymously buying land in Allston, Harvard is vying to further expand its presence in the area--and perhaps to cement plans to eventually relocate an entire graduate school to Allston.

Harvard publicly announced its intention to submit a bid for 48 acres of land that the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is offering to the highest bidder. Bids will be submitted on June 29, and the sale will be determined on the spot.

The 48 acres, known as Allston Landing, are contiguous to Harvard Business School.

Under Construction

Back in the Yard, a large yellow crane joined the Harvard landscape in the fall, and renovations continue on Widener Library, as a central heating and cooling system, a fire suppression system and enhanced security features are installed.

The project's main goal is to ensure a longer shelf life and increased security for the library's collections.

Meanwhile, renovations will begin immediately after Commencement on University Hall, home to FAS administrators, and continue through next fall.

Administrators are packing up their boxes and moving north of the Yard, to a building across from Maxwell Dworkin, a computer science and electrical engineering building dedicated by Microsoft President Steven A. Ballmer '77 in October.