archBOSTON ARCHIVE

[steve6790]

Plan may disrupt Garden of Peace
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | November 24, 2005

Tucked into the corner of a quiet plaza between the State House and City Hall, the Garden of Peace was meant to be a haven for families of homicide victims, a place to reflect on the loved ones memorialized there. Since the garden's dedication last year, families have come from across Massachusetts to sit among the river rocks, carved with some 500 names of murder victims, and mourn their loss.

So it came as an unpleasant surprise to the garden's founders when they learned that Suffolk University is considering a plan to turn a nearby nine-story state-owned office building into a 31-story tower that would house a 792-bed dormitory and student center.

Evelyn Tobin, a cofounder of the garden, said that adding a dormitory with hundreds of students passing through each day would wreck the atmosphere of the memorial they worked for years to build, and that many consider a special place.

''This is totally not compatible with the spirit of the garden," said Tobin, whose daughter was stabbed to death in Lexington in 1992 by an unknown assailant.

Suffolk University officials say they have met with representatives from the Garden of Peace to discuss their concerns. But they say that adding dormitory space would alleviate the pressure on the housing market in a city where universities abound and student housing is scarce.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other Boston officials have spent years badgering universities to add dormitories to free up housing for residents. Though many institutions have responded, adding more than 6,000 beds between 1998 and 2004, unmet demand for dormitory space in the city could be as high as 17,200 beds, according to a Boston Redevelopment Authority study published last year.

Suffolk's initial proposal for the project would roughly double the number of dormitory beds the university has for its 4,300 Boston undergrads, said Pat Meservey, the university's provost and academic vice president.

''We have limited housing for our students at this point, and we feel that it is in both the students' and the city's best interest to increase the number of beds we have available," Meservey said.

After a competitive bidding process last spring, the state chose Suffolk's proposal to redevelop 20 Somerset St., which until last year housed the Metropolitan District Commission. The development team is now conducting engineering studies to determine whether its plans would be feasible for the site. The scale of the tower project, which would cost more than $100 million, remains uncertain and would take several years to complete, Meservey said.

If a sale goes through in January, the university would still have to secure approvals from the BRA, which will include opportunities for public input.

Molly Sherden, vice president of government affairs for the Beacon Hill Civic Association, said that she had not seen plans for the project, but that she is concerned that it could threaten the Garden of Peace. ''I know how valuable memorials are to people who have lost loved ones for different reasons, and as I understand the project currently, I think it would have a very significant negative impact on the Garden of Peace," Sherden said.

A decade in the planning, the garden is on state land set aside through legislation during the redevelopment of 100 Cambridge Street, formerly the Saltonstall building, a state office building plagued by environmental problems, Tobin said.

Families of homicide victims who have a connection to Massachusetts can request to have their loved one's name inscribed on one of more than 1,000 river rocks that together represent a dry riverbed; among them are John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. At one end of the riverbed is a symbol of hope and rebirth: a cast bronze sculpture of three ibis soaring skyward by Judy Kensley McKie, whose son was stabbed to death in Cambridge in 1990.

Tobin said that she and others involved with the garden understand the need for dormitories in Boston and have nothing against college students. But she said they believe that the Suffolk project ought to be located somewhere else and not only because of the noise and hubbub it could create. The tower's landscape architect, she said, believes that the structure could create wind effects and cast shadows that would harm the garden's vegetation.

''They were very polite, but they gave us really no assurances that we would have any input at all into the plan that they have," she said.

Meservey said the university would take every precaution to mitigate the proposed tower's effect on the garden, including locating the entrance on the opposite side of the building to limit student traffic and offering landscaping to shelter it.

? Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.

[dudeursistershot]

[Lurker]

Not to be heartless, but it makes more sense to move the garden than the dormitory proposal. The Public Garden or a quiet part of the Common would be a more contextual location for it in the first place.

[BlinkieOB]

[DarkFenX]

Maybe we should build a new one for them and move the memorial site.

[dudeursistershot]

[citydave]

bump

[JoeGallows]

Not surprisingly, the dorm is facing more problems recently. I got this story from my school's newspaper. I have to type it out, so I'm just inserting the meat of the article:

SU may face obstacles in property buy

Vice President Patricia Meserve, who spoke on behalf of the university at the Jan. 25 meeting, said, "We are deeply committed to a thorough process."

...

The main concerns of Beacon Hill residents were focused on the possible demolition (of the former MDC building), which some felt would destroy part of the area's historic appeal and aesthetic.

Also, worsried citizens voiced their trepidation towards the erection of a structure that is currently proposed to stand 31 stories high.

"The MDC was an illustrious agency whose history is worth preserving," stated Susan Park, a member of the Boston Preservation Alliance. "The building at 20 Somerset represents this rich history and it is most fitting to preserve such an important contributing building."

John Norton, another proponent of the landmark designation and a volunteer for a local civic group, explained that part of Boston's attractiveness and allure are found within the historic edifices surrounding Suffolk's campus.

"Many people have moved into Beacon Hill because of the abundance of historical sites and buildings," Norton said. "The history of the MDC's building is certainly worth preserving."
---------------------------------

I personally think trying to designate the MDC building as a landmark is absurd. It just seems like NIMBYs are reaching and flailing wildly trying to grab at something that will stop the project. With all the SU kids living in apartments all over Beacon Hill having obnoxious parties every weekend, I would figure these people would want the kids off the residential part of the Hill. Apparently saving an air conditioner laden building of a defunct state agency is more important...

[chumbolly]

[JoeGallows]

From the Beacon Hill Times:

Groups coordinate efforts against dorm proposal

Several neighbors met last week to discuss coordination their efforts in opposing Suffolk University's current proposal for a new dorm on Somerset St.

"It was a good meeting" said Beatrice Nessen, Charles River Square, who is the co-founder of the Garden of Peace, which sits next to the site in question.

"The purpose of the meeting was to find common goals (of the various organizations)," said Nessen. Representatives from the Boston Preservation Alliance, the condos at 10 Bowdoin St., Temple Street residents and the Beacon Hill Civic Association joined Nessen at the meeting.

The group discussed the individual goals of each organization and ways that everyone could work together. "We are all opposed to the present proposal," said Nessen. "Primarily we are opposed to the dorm because of height, density and use."

Residents interested in the project can e-mail gardenofpeace@earthlink.net Nessen said now is the time to prepare. "The permitting process will begin soon," she said. "Once Suffolk files with the state and city, people who are concerned should be ready to go to public meeting and submit comments."

---------------------------------------

[shiz02130]

I really hope none of the residents of the "condos at 10 Bowdoin St." try to raise a stink about this dorm. Those people JUST moved in! Those residences are like 2 years old! NIMBY's = hypocrites.

[PaulC]

From this weeks Beacon Hill Times:

?'My mom and dad are paying big money for me to live here. I can do whatever I want,'? said a college student recently to Teddy Doyle, a police officer who was breaking up a loud party in his Beacon Hill home.


"They were frustrated with the vandalism, smashed car windows and broken mirrors. And they worried about disrespectful and abusive behavior they see on most weekend nights. "

[patrick0000]

i say take a kid like that, drag him onto a dark side street, and tell him that the citizens of boston are paying a lot of money to have their community policed, and proceed to smack him around until he comes to his senses. i hate that type of attitude...im so rich i can get away with whatever. bla bla bla. here at uvm, its all trust fund hippies from CT who have the same attitude. it makes me wanna punch somebody in the jaw.

back to the topic at hand...would this building really impact the memorial site, honestly, from an unbiased perspective, or is this all horse shit nimbyism?

[BOSDevelopment]

[statler]

[patrick0000]

?'My mom and dad are paying big money for me to live here. I can do whatever I want,'?



you have to be living blindly under some sort of a rock if you don't think kids have this attitude. grnated, the cop may have misquoted, but I can tell you all from my own personal perceptions, as someone that is college-aged, that this sort of attitude is very prevalent in college towns.

[BostonSkyGuy]

[patrick0000]

[BostonSkyGuy]

[DarkFenX]

Suffolk-cated dorm plan?
By Scott Van Voorhis
Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - Updated: 01:04 AM EST

A controversial proposal by Suffolk University to build a 31-story student skyrise not far from the State House now faces a potential deal-killing crusade by historic preservationists.

The Boston Preservation Alliance is lobbying to have a 1930s Metropolitan District Commission headquarters building declared a ?landmark.? It stands in the path of Suffolk?s high-rise dorm plans.

If successful, the group could block Suffolk?s plan to tear down the empty state office building and replace it with a $100 million-plus dorm for roughly 800 students.

As an historic landmark, the building would be protected from demolition, limiting Suffolk to a renovation and a modest expansion, preservationists contend.

The building, on Somerset Street where Beacon Hill meets the Government Center area, is now vacant. Gov. Mitt Romney having folded the MDC into another department.

?I think we made it clear all along that we would fight demolition,? said Sarah Kelly, executive director of the preservation group.

However, Suffolk disputes claims that the MDC building has special historic significance.

There are many former MDC properties out there with better claims - including some of the beaches and parks the MDC oversaw, said John Nucci, Suffolk?s vice president of government and community relations.

The MDC for decades oversaw municipal water services, roads through parks and beaches across the Boston area.

While the building was erected for the MDC, it is not its original headquarters, Nucci noted.

But Susan Park, president of the Boston Preservation Alliance, said the building has significance not only as the longtime MDC headquarters, but
as a handsomely designed 1930s government building.

The Suffolk skyrise, moreover, would ?overwhelm? the buildings around it, including the historic and recenty restored John Adams Courthouse, Park said.
-------------------------------
And the NIMBYs just won't stop. Why preserve something that is useless now instead of building a dorm that can house 800 scholars? These groups are on a preservation frenzy. I bet if the Big Dig was proposed now instead of the 1980s, these NIMBYs will go against it because the Artery is a landmark and should not be torn down for a new high-tech tunnel.

[Ron Newman]

In fairness, I'm sure the NIMBYs would happily accept turning this building into a dorm, instead of replacing it by a dorm.

[tocoto]

"In fairness, I'm sure the NIMBYs would happily accept turning this building into a dorm, instead of replacing it by a dorm."

I doubt they want a dorm of any kind in the neighborhood, too much noise and such.

One of Boston's greatest assets, density, is also on of it biggest problems. Everything is crammed into a small area. Too bad there isn't a high rise district with good subway access that is zoned for high rise buildings, residential, dorms and entertainment. Someplace where people who like height and noise and urban energy can live and developers can build without tons of red tape.

[Ron Newman]

that's the purpose of the High Spine.

[citydave]

The NIMBYs aren't just concerned about historic preservation. They don't want students there, period.

From this week's Beacon Hill Times

BHCA votes to oppose Suffolk dorm by Karen Cord Taylor


The Beacon Hill Civic Association voted last week to formally oppose Suffolk University?s proposed high-rise dorm at 20 Somerset Street.

The board of directors took the step mainly because of the effect they believe Suffolk?s three-year-old dorm at 10 Somerset Street has had on the neighborhood: an increase in rowdy behavior, vandalism, under-age drinking and other behaviors that have made life miserable for residents of Temple, Hancock and Joy streets especially. They fear that doubling the number of students will double the problems.

?The demographics of the neighborhood have changed,? observed David Thomas, a civic association board member and owner of several rental properties on the Hill. ?There are a lot more behavior problems. I won?t rent to undergrads again.?

Thomas said he has had unusual and extreme problems in his own buildings with young tenants. He and others said they think the dorm students gravitate to Beacon Hill, where their friends live in private apartments, and they drink and carouse here because they can?t in the dorm.

?I?m not trying to be alarmist,? said Thomas, ?but there is a pent-up demand in the dorms. [The students] are set up for an outlet.?

Since September, there have been 287 Suffolk students living in apartments on Beacon Hill. Of those 163 are graduate students, both full and part-time. The remaining 124 are full-time undergraduates.

But Suffolk is not the only university with students on Beacon Hill.
City Councilor Michael Ross?s office counts almost 900 undergraduate students from other institutions such as Boston University, Emerson College, Berklee School of Music, Wentworth and Simmons. Harvard volunteered that it has no undergraduates on Beacon Hill. MIT did not submit data since institutions outside Boston aren?t required to report the number of students living off-campus. The North Slope holds at least twice as many students as the South Slope.
Suffolk officials said the point of the dorms is to get students out of neighborhood apartments. The university currently houses 771 of its total of 4600 students in two dorms, one on Tremont Street and the other on Somerset Street, according to John Nucci, a Suffolk vice president. The new dorm?Suffolk?s third?is planned for approximately 800 students. That number scares some Hill residents.

?That is almost ten percent of the Hill population and they?re all students,? Chestnut Street resident Steve Young pointed out. He said such an influx would change the character of Beacon Hill, perhaps making it more like Kenmore Square around BU or the Fenway near Northeastern University.

But Suffolk counters that reducing the number of students in apartments will eventually reduce problems with bad behavior on the Hill. They point out that they are following Mayor Menino?s directive that colleges and universities house students in dorms, a move that parents want too.

Nucci said he believes Suffolk is going about this responsibly. For one thing, the new dorm, which would face the Suffolk County Courthouse, will house a new student center, now located in the Donahue Building on Temple Street. ?We are continuing to pull much of our activity away from the Beacon Hill neighborhood,? he said.

Furthermore, he said that Suffolk has established an orientation for students that will educate them as to appropriate behavior in the neighborhood. All students living in 02108 and 02114 have been sent a letter recently pointing out that bad behavior will have consequences. Next, he said, the university intends to include Beacon Hill neighbors in the student orientation program so students can hear directly what is expected of them as neighbors.

In addition, the university is forming a neighborhood watch program with university officials walking around the affected parts of the Hill during times when the behavior seems most inappropriate. Finally, students engaged in inappropriate behavior will have to face the dean of students, with consequences depending on the problem. Since September, the dean has dealt with between 15 and 20 students whose behavior was reported through emails or through the Boston or Suffolk police, according to Michael Feeley, project counsel for Suffolk. Nucci promised a zero-tolerance program for students living in Beacon Hill apartments just like the zero-tolerance program for illegal activities in the dorm.

The dorm faces two other kinds of opposition. Construction would necessitate demolishing a 1930s art deco building formerly occupied by the now defunct Metropolitan District Commission, but in its heyday a robust keeper of parks along the Charles River and other locations. Suffolk?s proposal to build up to 31 stories also has caused concern about light and shadows among residents.

But adding approximately 800 potentially rowdy students to the neighborhood is the biggest concern, and if that problem could be put to rest, the university would have a better chance of success with this project. ?I don?t have a problem with students,? said Revere Street resident Tara Gohlmann, who is a BHCA board member. ?I could support the dorm, but they have to control their students.?

[Ron Newman]

Put the dorm on City Hall Plaza. Solves two problems at once. Maybe it could replace the JFK low-rise.

[ablarc]

[Ron Newman]

the Copy Cop building is on the north side of Boylston, which is still in Back Bay. The high spine starts on the south side of Boylston.

[ablarc]

Several buildings have gone up on Boylston's north side in the thirteen story range, including the one built fairly recently with all the brick bays. That's a fine template for Boylston's boulevardesque north streetwall. Copy Cop is a piece of shit; the fact that preservationists speak of preserving it is evidence they can't be trusted.

[Ron Newman]

I agree with you about that particular building, but the High Spine is still a concept for the space between Back Bay and South End.

[Vanshnookenraggen]

I think we need a new design approach. The High Spine works but what we need now are High Dots, nodes of towers around transit stops and colleges.

[JohnnySic]

^Agreed. I'd like to see highrise zones rise up in different areas.

[ZenZen]

What about the shadows, man? Maybe the developer can help pay for a new sun?

[Vanshnookenraggen]

You know whats funny? As a photographer I find the shadows that tall buildings cast beautiful and just as interesting as the buildings, if not more.

[castevens]

You do a lot of black-and-white, where contrast is more important than the object being photographed. So yes, it is. It's quite annoying in most cases for color photography though. But sometimes you can work it into the image well, but most of the time it just underexposes an important part of the picture

[quadratdackel]

We might support this dorm project and be legitimately perplexed by Beacon Hill residents simultaneously wanting students out of their neighborhood housing and opposing new dorm construction, but none of us can deny the less-than-neighborly tendencies of college students. This is the same issue here at Northeastern. Maybe if we didn't have a drinking age, then undergrads could just go out with the rest of the population, but we do, so they're forced to either not party, which is lame and not likely, or party in their residence. Even if you manage to take alcohol out of it, you still need loud music well past the rest of our bedtimes. This has to happen somewhere, preferably somewhere isolated from the rest of us. Assuming these dorm complexes with their built-in student centers can accomodate this (I'm skeptical because they're probably over-policed, pushing the harder partiers elsewhere), our strategy of putting more students in dorms will work. If this MDC lot isn't the right place, then Suffolk need a better alternative, just like the community gave Northeastern for its dorm construction.

Either way, these dorms have the effect of increasing the general housing supply, even if the general public can't live in them, because they pull students out of the general housing supply. And that's clearly a good thing for Boston right now.

Question: Where'd yinz go to college (if you did) and how was partying handled there?

I went to University of Rochester, which is extremely isolated geographically from the rest of the city. Partying mainly happened on campus, and there were no neighbors to complain.

[Matt]

[user_196]

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=136649

[lexicon506]

I can see where these complaints are coming from and I don't want to seem cold-hearted, but shouldn't they have thought about the location before they built this "oasis?" I mean, it's right in the middle of a major city's downtown, that doesn't exactly scream "peaceful and quiet" to me.

[Ron Newman]

I wouldn't call Beacon Hill (even the east slope) "the middle of downtown". It's mostly residential.

[dudeursistershot]

[Bowwest]

Which building does Suffolk want to add to?

Here is a picture of the garden. We should stop talking about ways to improve City Hall Plaza since it will not be possible because of its proximity to the garden.

[Ron Newman]

Not "add to" -- demolish and replace.

(I tend to favor Suffolk in this dispute, but should withhold judgment until I get a chance to walk around there.)

[Bowwest]

Is this the building?


And is this the garden?


If so the garden is already literally surrounded by high rise buildings including 400 ft. McCormack Building, 400 ft. Saltonstall Building, 300 ft. Suffolk County Court House and to some extent 500 ft. One Beacon. Look at all the shadows already being cast. I can't imagine the Suffolk dorm would make the shadows that much worse.

[JoeGallows]

bowesst, that's exactly the building and exactly the garden.

I just remembered that BHCA was tossing around papers last week (literally littering the sidwalks of the Hill) touting their meeting regarding the dorm proposal (which took place on Monday, I would've gone but was busy). The only reason I picked it off the ground was because it featured a (albeit crude) rendering at the top.



This is a a view looking south as look through 100 Cambridge St. That's the McCormick building just showing off to the right. The trees and shrubs at the bottom of the building are the Garden of Peace. The one story jut-out to the left is a mystery to me. It could be the ground floor plans that I read about in this week's Suffolk Journal (of which I'll post the details of later, it's close to class time for me). Sorry about the shoe print, it was on the ground. I doubt those two diagonal lines are a design element, just some weird attempt to make the building look gleaming (they're not part of the shoe print though )

Also, I read elsewhere the plans are housed at the West End library, so I may get myself down there to check em out and report back, but it might not be soon, because I should be studying for finals, not looking at highly contested building plans.

[Ron Newman]

I wonder if some creative solution could be found to channel sunlight into the garden via lenses and mirrors?

[LeTaureau]

^haha, thats a whacky idea, but I dont think it would work. They would need to rotate and turn as the sun moves across the sky and besides, this is New England. Our winters are long and harsh, gardens are enjoyable from April til October, only about half of the year, and that's even a stretch.

I respect the the garden and what it represents, but the patrons of this sacred space must realize that it is located in the downtown area of a major city, and that the city must go on living around it. And that may very well include college students in a high rise dorm nearby.

[Ron Newman]

But that means you only need to worry about bringing sunlight in between April through October. Nothing will grow in it, and nobody will visit it, during the other six months.

[statler]

[LeTaureau]

^meh, seems like a cool idea, but its not a panacea. From what it seems, the vegetation in the park is sparse and probably shade tolerant, though its hard for me to tell plant species from the photos posted. The trees look like birch, and I know they are very rugged.

Its just a bad location for a park like this.

[denatlanta]

This site is not a CEMETERY!! How can anyone call the plans to build a dorm here disrespectful? If the relatives thought about it, they might understand that literally hundreds of students might actually benefit from being in the vicinity of such a memorial; a memorial which was built in memory of those killed by violent crimes. I would imagine that many of the victims memorialized there are college age and younger and this alone would probably have a sobering, yet positive influence on the hundreds of students living in a nearby dorm. Maybe Suffolk should have offered this million + dollars to provide scholarships to the children of crime victims. Maybe that would have shamed this group into some common sense thinking. Frankly, I don't think Suffolk should offer any money but that seems to be the only way to get things built in Boston.