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.

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.