Headed in Reverse on Construction Management Plans

In what is hopefully not a bad omen for Boston College's proposed ten-year, $1 billion capital construction project, questions surfaced in the last week over the city approval process for renovations underway at the library on BC's new Brighton Campus.

How did neighborhood residents sense something was going awry? A week or two ago a construction truck drove down one-way Lake Street, the driver probably realized his mistake, and then he backed up several hundred feet in order to get to an entrance into the Brighton Campus -- the former St. John's Seminary land purchased by BC in 2004-7.

At the October 16, 2007 meeting of the BC Task Force at which the library renovations were discussed, I had mentioned that construction vehicles ought to enter the Brighton Campus only through the Commonwealth Avenue entrance. A logical extension is that no construction trucks should travel down Lake Street or Foster Street -- particularly since the latter has a posted 2.5 ton weight limit banning heavy trucks. BC officials seemed to nod in agreement.

After seeing the truck go in reverse up Lake Street, several residents thought that there ought to be a construction management plan (CMP) for the renovation work -- and that it ought to say that there would be no truck traffic on Lake Street. Queries to BC and the BRA caused city workers to scramble for a few days to figure out what was going on -- and if the city's processes regarding the construction work were being followed.

The BRA requires large development projects to negotiate a signed CMP with the Boston Transportation Department after BRA Board approval but before construction begins. The problem: there wasn't a CMP on file for the library renovations.

In the end, everything appeared to be OK: BC told the BRA that renovation work on the library only started after the city issued a building permit on June 18th; and the BRA determined that a CMP was not required for the renovation work because the BRA had issued a "notice of exemption" for the work on May 14th.

And BC officials apparently told their contractors in no uncertain terms what entrance they should be using.


Update on BC's IMP Amendment

The renovation work on the library provided an opportunity to get an update on BC's institutional master plan amendment first filed in October 2007.

The revised IMPA of April 2008 requested approval of temporary occupancy of Bishop Peterson Hall as the offices and classrooms for the new School of Theology and Ministry, along with renovations of the library and St. William's Hall. After the renovations of St. William's Hall are complete, the STM would move there permanently. (St. William's Hall was already approved as the site for the STM in the 2006 IMPA, so BC returned to this previous plan.) The Bishop Peterson Hall kitchens will be permanently used jointly by STM seminarians and the diocesan seminarians at St. John's Seminary. (The former rector of St. John's Seminary won't be happy!)

The "notice of exemption" of May 14, 2008 was issued by the BRA because the library renovations, with the exception of a handicapped access ramp, were entirely interior to the building. While the library renovations are still formally part of the IMPA, the notice meant that BC could proceed with them without waiting for approval of the IMPA itself.

The public comment period for the IMPA closed on June 6, 2008 without any letters received, according to BRA project manager John Fitzgerald.

Since that date, BC and the BRA appear to have been too busy with other issues to follow-up on the IMPA. Even though Article 80 review dictates that a BRA Board vote should follow soon after the close of the public comment period, it has not yet taken place. Nor has the Zoning Commission taken it up.

Fitzgerald offered his assurances that, when the St. William's renovations are approved, the BRA will make sure that a construction management plan is signed with BTD prior to the start of any construction work.

And that no more trucks would be backing up on Lake Street.


Image of a dump truck by cindy47452 provided through a Creative Commons license.

BRA Meeting on BC's Renovations to Library and Bishop Peterson Hall

Boston Redevelopment Authority Public Meeting

Topic:  Boston College's Institutional Master Plan Amendment filing to renovate two buildings.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
6:00 - 7:00 pm

Brighton Marine Health Center
77 Warren Street, 3rd floor
Brighton MA 02135

For more information, contact:
John FitzGerald
Project Manager
Boston Redevelopment Authority
617-918-4267
John.Fitzgerald.bra@cityofboston.gov

Note that this meeting does not appear on the BRA website for Allston-Brighton meetings.

Also note:  this is not a meeting of the BC Task Force, but is a public meeting organized by the BRA as part of the public comment period on the IMPA Notification Form.


Institutional Master Plan Amendment

Boston College  filed an IMPA on 10/12/07 to provide for use of two buildings, Bishop Peterson Hall and the St. John's Library, that BC purchased in the late summer from the Archdiocese of Boston.



They announced that the IMPA would cover:

1. Extension of the BC master plan zoning overlay to include these two buildings;
2. Renovations of the two buildings; and
   
3. Occupancy of the two buildings for institutional use beginning in late 2008.

Boston College Files Institutional Master Plan Amendment

Boston College today filed its Institutional Master Plan Amendment (IMPA) Notification Form and Project Notificaton Form (PNF) with the Boston Redevelopment Authority.  

This IMPNF/PNF seeks to further amend the Approved Master Plan with respect to two Proposed Projects: (i) to substitute Bishop Peterson Hall for St. William’s Hall as the facility to be renovated and used as the location of the STM; and (ii) to include in the Approved Master Plan the renovation and use of the existing Library Building formerly owned by St. John’s Seminary for use by both the St. John’s Seminary and the STM.

The STM is BC's new School of Theology and Ministry, which is the product of the merger with the Weston Jesuit School of Theology.



The document can be found posted at Boston College's institutional master plan website.

BC is also appealing to the BRA to waive full review of this IMPA:

Boston College respectfully requests that the BRA in its Large Project Review scoping determination for the Bishop Peterson Hall renovation waive the requirement of further review of these Proposed Projects pursuant to Section 80B-5.3(d) of the Zoning Code.

This will be an important question for BC officials at Tuesday's meeting of the BC Task Force, particularly in light of their statement at the September 18th meeting that they would not be pursuing expedited review of this IMPA.  Instead, they are seeking to waive the Draft Project Impact Report review -- not just the Final Project Impact Report like Harvard was recently successful in having waived.  It will be important to hear them clarify why they need to avoid a DPIR altogether.  The text of Article 80B-5.3(d) referred to begins:

Scoping Determination Waiving Further Review. If the Scoping Determination indicates that the PNF, together with any additional materials and comments received by the Boston Redevelopment Authority prior to the issuance of the Scoping Determination, adequately describes the impacts of the Proposed Project, the Scoping Determination may waive the requirements of both subsection 4 and subsection 5 of this Section 80B-5 for the filing and review of a Draft Project Impact Report (DPIR) and a Final Project Impact Report (FPIR). In such case, the Scoping Determination also shall include any conditions the Authority may require for the mitigation of such impacts.

.

BC Task Force Meeting: Tuesday 10/16, at 6:30 pm

BC Task Force Meeting

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
6:30-8:30 pm

Brighton Marine Health Center
77 Warren Street, 3rd floor
Brighton MA 02135

Agenda:

1. IMPA -- Update
   
2. Student Behavior -- Update
   
3. Allston/Brighton Scholarship Program
   

For more information, contact:
John FitzGerald
Project Manager
Boston Redevelopment Authority
617-918-4267
John.Fitzgerald.bra@cityofboston.gov

Note that this meeting does not appear on the BRA website for Allston-Brighton meetings.


Institutional Master Plan Amendment

At the September 18 meeting of the BC Task Force, BC officials notified residents that they intend to file an IMPA imminently filed an IMPA on 10/12/07 to provide for use of two buildings, Bishop Peterson Hall and the St. John's Library, that BC purchased in the late summer from the Archdiocese of Boston.



They announced that the IMPA would cover:

1. Extension of the BC master plan zoning overlay to include these two buildings;
2. Renovations of the two buildings; and
   
3. Occupancy of the two buildings for institutional use beginning in late 2008.

According to the previous meeting, BC was intending to have filed the IMPA by now, but I have heard no word of that; hopefully, they will clarify the timetable.

A sticky issue that was raised in the September 18 meeting was housing for the seminarians of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. The IMPA does not provide for housing of the seminarians, but postpones the issue for the subsequent IMP; in effect, this move blocks the seminarians from using existing housing on the Brighton Campus, like St. Williams Hall, thereby forcing BC into building new housing for them (i.e., next to the Foster Rock).

Another unresolved issue was use of St. Williams Hall in the IMPA. Since the IMPA will move occupancy (offices, classrooms) of those seminarians from St. Williams Hall to Bishop Peterson Hall, theoretically this will leave St. Williams Hall vacant -- unless a different occupancy is included in the IMPA. At least one BC official had stated informally in the past that administrative staff at More Hall would be moving into St. Williams Hall, but this point was not raised at the September 18 meeting.


Student Behavior

BC officials have been playing full-court press with trying to bring off-campus student behavior under control -- and mollifying the neighbors about it -- prior to submitting their big IMP later this year. At the September 18 meeting of the BC Task Force, BC Vice President for Governmental and Student Affairs Tom Keady, Jr., stated twice that BC itself has a "zero-tolerance" policy for off-campus student behavior; this was further clarification of previous statements, such as by Dean Paul Chebator in an August 29, 2007 letter to students, that "the Boston Police Department has instituted a 'zero tolerance policy' and will be enforcing the law aggressively throughout the year."

Hopefully the update at the October 16 meeting will include answers to:

1. What are the procedures BC and Boston Police will be using when they break up a party, i.e., how to they decide when students enter the BC disciplinary system vs. the municipal system?
2. How many students have entered into the BC disciplinary process over off-campus behavior since the beginning of the academic year?
3. How many students have been arrested by Boston Police?
4. How many problem houses have been identified by BC and Boston police, and (roughly) where are they?
5. Has the electronic ID scanning device been initiated for use by BC police?
   
6. Is Keady still working the midnight-3am shift?

Allston/Brighton Scholarships

These scholarships are part of the community benefits from previous BC institutional master plan. Ten new scholarships are awarded each year to qualifying students who reside in Allston-Brighton. The definition of "qualifying" was described in a newsletter, distributed to residents in August 2007, as having at least $10,000 in financial need. While that August newsletter named the most recent recipients, previous recipients have not been named; hopefully, that will be corrected at the October 16 meeting.

Boston College to Submit IMPA This Fall -- Prior to Submitting New Master Plan

Boston College has recently completed their transaction to purchase the remaining land of the former St. John's Seminary from the Archdiocese of Boston. The purchase also included Bishop Peterson Hall (mid-20th century extension to the historic St. John's Hall) and the Library.

Since these two buildings are not currently part of Boston College's approved Institutional Master Plan from 2000 (as amended with an IMPA in 2006), BC must apply to extend their institutional master plan area to the buildings and allow their occupancy for institutional use. They wish to do some significant interior renovations to both buildings, too.

As a result, BC legal counsel Joe Herlihy announced at Tuesday's BC Task Force meeting that they will be submitting "in the next few weeks" an Institutional Master Plan Amendment to allow renovations of these two buildings and permit their institutional use. He said that BC would not be pursuing an expedited review process, but instead will follow the standard timeline defined in the Article 80 review process. BRA project manager John Fitzgerald said that the initial comment period (following the IMPANF) is 30 days, and the later comment period (following the DPIR) is 60 days, so the full process will take a minimum of three months.

BC's full, 10-year IMP will be filed later in the fall, possibly overlapping a bit with the approval process of the IMPA.

Bishop Peterson Hall will now be used for offices and classrooms of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, which is re-affiliating with BC; WJST students will continue to reside in Cambridge and commute to the Brighton Campus for classes. The 2006 IMPA approved St. Williams Hall for these WJST offices and classrooms. It appears as though St. Williams Hall will no longer have an approved institutional use during the time period between approval of the upcoming IMPA and the later IMP; their plan is for office space. Housing for the WJST seminarians will also be deferred to the IMP. BC's goal is to get quick approval of a largely renovation project that will likely not be controversial, while deferring possibly controversial projects (that may slow down the approval process) to the IMP.

The WJST has 18 faculty, 15 staff, and 140 students who will be using Bishop Peterson Hall. The current occupants of the building are overflow offices from the Archdiocese's Chancery, who will be moving to Braintree, so there will not be an increase in density of workers between Bishop Peterson and St. John's Halls.

The Library will also be renovated, and will then be jointly used by the St. John's Seminary and the WJST. It requires HVAC mechanical upgrades, code updates, and ADA-compliant updates.


The meeting also included a discussion of the student behavior plan and its enforcement during the first three weekends of the school year. I will defer that information for a future post.

BC Task Force Meeting: Tuesday 9/18 at 6:30 pm

BC Task Force Meeting

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
6:30-8:30 pm

Brighton Marine Health Center
77 Warren Street, 3rd floor
Brighton MA 02135

Agenda:

1. ISD Briefing- Overcrowding
   
2. Bishop Peterson Hall and Library- Renovations
   
3. Diseased/Dead Trees- Brighton Campus

For more information, contact:
John FitzGerald
Project Manager
Boston Redevelopment Authority
617-918-4267
John.Fitzgerald.bra@cityofboston.gov


Brown and Dying Trees

For more information on the dead and dying trees in the Brighton Campus (former St. John's Seminary property), see my previous post.

Late last week, I was informed that BC people (looking more like outside contractors than internal employees of their Urban Ecology Institute) were tagging some of the trees on the property. Upon visiting, I found the dying pine trees in question along Comm Ave to have pink tags on them; healthier trees were untagged. I also heard that there were other colored tags used elsewhere on the property: what I found were blue tags on apparently healthy trees (at least to my uninformed eyes) in the interior of the property, trees of all different kinds. But there were lots of trees without tags. And there was one metal lamppost with two colored tags, neither blue nor pink; I hope they don't try to saw it down.


Bishop Peterson Hall and Library: Renovations

These are buildings part of the final $65 million sale of property by the St. John's Seminary (controlled by the Archdiocese of Boston) to Boston College. See previous post for information on what buildings these are, and another previous post for BC's intended use for the buildings as of June 2007.

It is unclear the extent to which Boston College can occupy these buildings for institutional purpose prior to approval of some kind of Institutional Master Plan (or IMP amendment), let alone renovate them. In 2006, BC got an IMPA approved which provided for renovations and institutional use of other buildings within the Brighton Campus that had been purchased up until 2006, but that IMPA (in conjunction with the prior IMP) did not cover these new buildings (Bishop Peterson Hall and the Library).

At the task force meeting, BC and the BRA will presumably be explaining what approvals they may or may not need in order to proceed with these renovations and occupation of the buildings for institutional use. It is possible that it will involve an IMPA that they would want to fast-track for approval prior to dealing with the 10-year IMP, or that they will roll the renovations into the IMP itself... or that someone can figure out how they'll avoid the IMPA/IMP route altogether.

Boston College Details Building Uses for Latest Land Purchase from the Archdiocese

At the BRA's BC Task Force Meeting last night (June 19, 2007), Boston College officials described the land purchase of the remaining St. John's Seminary land (and all but one building).

Boston College will not file their Institutional Master Plan Notification Form (IMPNF) until late August or early September 2007, according to Thomas Keady, Jr., BC VP for Government and Community Affairs. The delay is due to the Archdiocese recently exercising their sale option on most of the remainder of the St. John's Seminary land; while this was expected to happen eventually, the timing appears to have been more rapid than anticipated. The sale is currently slated to be completed around late August, according to Jeanne Levesque of BC's Office of Government and Community Affairs.

In particular, BC will be purchasing Bishop Peterson Hall (but not St. John's Hall), which means that they are planning moving some uses around among buildings on the Brighton Campus. Here's a map from a previous post:

Here's a breakdown of the new uses for buildings on/around the Brighton Campus:

1. St. John's Hall: remain as property owned and operated by St. John's Seminary, although its form of ownership will be re-classified as confdominium unit(s). BC will own the land under and around St. John's Hall, while the Seminary will own the building itself. BC and the Seminary will jointly run a kitchen. St. John's Hall has four floors plus a basement level.
   
2. St. John's Seminary will receive an exclusive easement for parking and access to St. John's Hall. They currently have approximately 40 parking spaces; there was no indication of the number of spaces to be included in the deal.
3. Bishop Peterson Hall will convert to BC ownership and use for offices/classrooms of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. There will be no residential uses for the building. These offices/classrooms for WJST were originally slated for St. Williams Hall (which BC already owns).
   
4. St. Williams Hall will now be used for academic, administrative, and/or business offices. It sounds like More Hall offices, for example, will now be moved to St. Williams Hall to free up the More Hall site for a new development.
5. St. John's Library will be used jointly between BC and the Seminary; WJST will relocate their library collection into this building.
6. Chancery will remain administative offices for Archdiocese for one year after BC purchases the property, prior to the Archdiocese's move to Braintree. BC's long-range plan shows that the Chancery will eventually be razed to make way for new buildings (e.g., academic) and their new access road into the campus. Ditto for the Creigh Library, as best as I could tell.
7. Parking garage (?) and parking uses will remain for the time being.

Jeanne Levesque also announced that they would have a master plan website go public on July 16, 2007. Tom Keady said that the IMPNF and IMP would be made available on their website. Gerald Autler of the BRA said that BC Task Force meeting minutes will eventually be made available on the BC website; he planned on sending them out electronically to "everyone on his list" in the meantime.

The meeting had a lot more activity going on, though... and that will have to wait for post #2. Unless the A-B TAB beats me to it with their teaser:

"We know BC task force meetings can generate a lot of anger, but last night’s apparently took the cake is word on the street –at least as far as the amount of yelling and screaming it generated. One person apparently even felt the need to call the cops. We’ll have a story later."

Archdiocese Considering Moving Offices from Brighton to Braintree

The Boston Globe ran a front-page, above-the-fold, article in today's paper that the Archdiocese of Boston are in the "final stages of negotiating a deal to move their offices from the campus in Brighton... to a four-story building off route 128 in Braintree..."

Many of us heard unconfirmed reports on Monday that Archdiocese employees at the Chancery are currently packing up their office items, with a move completion targeted before September. The question is: where are they moving the offices?

While the Archdiocese is considering moving their central administration offices to Braintree, they plan to keep the St. John's Seminary itself at the same Brighton location:

"St. John's Seminary will remain at its current location, regardless of the outcome of our assessment of the long-term needs of central administration," said [archdiocesan spokesman Terrence C.] Donilon.

Boston College Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs Thomas Keady, Jr., has stated publicly several times during the last month that the community can expect certain, additional parts of the Archdiocese property to be sold soon to BC as part of an Archdiocesan sell option within their 2004 purchase and sale contract with BC. Another BC official was heard speculating that the Archdiocese would pack their administrative offices into the St. John's Hall (within the St. John's Seminary buildings)--alongside the St. John's seminarians--but then sell the adjoining Bishop Peterson Hall (and the Chancery) to BC. Here's an old graphic from the St. John's Seminary site:

The Globe story implies that the Archdiocese may no longer be considering moving their administrative offices to St. John's Hall. While the Archdiocese has stated clearly that the seminarians are intended to stay in St. John's Hall, it is unclear whether or not the Archdiocese would sell the building and under what circumstances the seminarians would stay.

The reported sales price for the remaining property is $20 million for the 4.75 acre of the Chancery site, and $40 million for the 13.5 acre of the St. John's Seminary buildings site (and adjoining woods). I am guessing that the library is part of the latter parcel.

Since the Archdiocese and Boston College already have a purchase and sale contract which includes a sell option for these properties and a price, then why would they be in final negotations? My speculation is that they are negotiating sale of part of a parcel specified in the contract, and hence they would have to agree upon the size of the sub-parcel and its price. The likely parcel: selling Bishop Peterson Hall but not St. John's Hall. We'll see.

Note that Boston College's master plans have included buildings sited on the Chancery land not yet sold to them; there is little surprise at this point that it will be sold to BC. The surprise would be if the Archdiocese offices altogether move out of Brighton.

The Boston Herald first broke news of the story last Saturday.

A final note: The Globe's story includes a graphic of the Brighton property already sold, and that which may be sold in the immediate future. The graphic contains two subtle factual errors as to the seller of 196 Foster St (which was actually Virginia Dalton, not the Archdiocese), and the purchase dates of 188 and 196 Foster St (which were both purchased in 2006, not 2004).