Harvard’s Never-Ending Home Improvement Project

Plympton Street has a new look.

The constant banging and clanging, the distressed temporary plastic veils, and the ginormous excavators make it impossible to forget that Harvard is in the midst of a massive home improvement project.

The House Renewal initiative began over a decade ago. In 2012, the renovations started with groundbreaking developments on Quincy House’s Stone Hall. The original plan, announced in 2008, projected over $1 billion for renovations and laid out a 15-year timeline to complete the whole project. But as of today, 12 years into the initiative, only five-and-some houses have been completed, and the project has already racked up a price tag of over $800 million.

As delays continue and costs rise, it’s about time we ask: What on earth is happening with Harvard’s house renovations?

Even if we ignore delays resulting from unforeseeable challenges — like the Covid-19 pandemic — the construction projects are likely to take substantially longer than originally intended. It would be no surprise, at this point, if renovations ran right past 2030.

In 2023, Stephen Needham, the Executive Director of the Undergraduate House Renewal Program, compared delays in the project to similar setbacks that occurred in a parallel effort at Yale, which lasted from 1998 to 2011. But at this rate, Harvard’s project could take a decade longer than Yale’s and exceed 150 percent of its billion-dollar budget.

Delays aside, many of the renovations Harvard has completed also leave much to be desired. The University excluded buildings like New Quincy from the renovation plan and most of the newly renovated dorms still do not offer in-room air conditioning.

Despite the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ promise to “change how the physical spaces function to support students’ academic and social needs in the 21st century,” Harvard has also done a lackluster job renovating with student growth and development — rather than mere comfort — in mind.

Some of the renovations, for example, failed to create enough singles and left too many hallway doubles that students find undesirable. In a 2016 report, Harvard acknowledged it would be beneficial to eliminate hallway doubles in favor of more suites and hallway singles, claiming that it would make changes to adjust future renovations accordingly.

This brings me to a final problem: housing disparity.

Project costs, living perks, and student amenities, have all varied across projects, creating new discrepancies in housing rather than equalizing quality across the houses. Early renewals of Quincy and Leverett, for example, did not receive the same overhaul that Adams is currently receiving. While on face value, house renewals should create a more equitable experience across housing, initial oversights in renovations that are corrected in future projects will ensure that disparities exist.

And, of course, that’s to say nothing of the halls left behind. Twenty-five years from now, New Quincy’s bathrooms will be decades old while housing in the Quad will be effectively brand new.

To its credit, Harvard has solicited student feedback throughout the renovation process, but initial mistakes are going to be difficult to correct — there’s no do-over for major renovations — and, in a project that is already running significantly late and over budget, it is especially unlikely any mistakes will be addressed soon.

A better initial planning phase, with more robust student feedback, could have helped the College avoid some of the difficulties they are now finding themselves facing. Before it starts the remaining House renovations, the College might consider how it can improve this process to avoid making mistakes that may not be remedied for decades to come.

It is time for Harvard to practice sustainable renovations, if not for the sake of its own bank account, then for its students.

Elizabeth Rushing Place ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Quincy House.