New student residence hall(s) & other future projects

Sketch of the site and building(s) volume. Referenced as The Hilltop.

Hogan to get expanded dining space.

PP has access to a crypt where they keep all of the most important documents, e.g. the deed to the property, the agreement with the Jesuits, and Father Brooks's correspondence with Dave Gavitt. 

I found slides of a portion of it presented at a town hall for HC faculty nearly four months ago.  I had searched for it on Sasaki's website, as often completed projects are profiled there.  But nothing.

I would be surprised if the full plan is less than 100 sheets 

The image of the sheet showing the new residence halls is cropped from a larger image that hints that the rink renovations/expansion is included, but one comes to that only by interpolating / extrapolating a few squiggles on a map of the upper campus.

The YouTube video of the Town Hall presentation can be found here.   It does not include the question and answer session at the end of the presentations.



To my knowledge, none of this was discussed at any HC-related presentations during the Reunion weekends.
 
 

Master list of academic / residential projects
Hilltop residences: new construction
Easy St. housing: renovation / reconstruction (presumably includes Brooks)
Carlin and Alumni: renovation
Loyola: renovation
Hogan: renovation and new addition
Kimball: renovation
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Fenwick, O'Kane, Smith: renovation
Stein: renovation
Beaven: renovation
O'Neil: renovation
Dinand: renovation / potential new addition
Wheeler: renovation (Wheeler is grouped with academic buildings)

Off-campus property holdings are depicted, but no indication of a change from present use.

Footprints for three new buildings between Hogan and Luth / Hart are depicted. A single rectangular footprint is placed in the middle of the existing lot to the south of Hogan. Perhaps this may be a parking garage. Two narrow, parallel rectangular footprints (long axis is north south) are depicted in the parking lots on either side of the road leading from Luth to Hogan.

What appears to be a fourth building footprint is depicted where the tennis courts currently are.

My guess is that these four footprints mark sites for potential new buildings that could be constructed next decade.

Phreek, thank you for providing the presentation. It is enlightening.

Based on the presentation there will not be westward expansion of the campus across College Street. What is unclear but was possibly alluded in one of the slide presented was additional construction on the south side of City View.

Regarding Stein, the building was dedicated in 1988. In the 35 years since it was completed as a classroom building, pedagogy has evolved regarding the use of technology to leverage and enhance the learning experience. Changes in the classrooms now should include the use of interactive whiteboards for presentation, the ability to link academic environments and presentation spaces, not only on the HC campus, but to learning locations across the nation and internationally, as well as a change in the learning environment configuration.

Beaven was renovated in the late 1990’s IIRC, to become a faculty office building. I lived in Beaven 55 years ago. It was sorely in need of renovation then. It should come inline for renovation after residential housing, student environment services and dining have been considered and funded.

Anyone with a Billion dollars that they can provide….

Beaven needs to be redone to 'decompress' the faculty offices.  Never been in Beaven post-conversion, and very rarely before, but based on descriptions used elsewhere, they (HC) want to create academic pods of faculty offices, study spaces, and small classrooms / meeting spaces. If a class session is lecture only, that can be streamed, so one doesn't need a classroom in the traditional sense for the lecture.

On Stein, Stein is too popular.  Everyone wants to hold their classes there.  Stein needs to be renovated to reflect the 21st Century classroom and use of technology.

The ground floor of the Hilltop residence halls will be devoted entirely to social, study, and learning spaces.  I assume this indicates Montserrat classrooms will be included, for example.  Very likely, the reconstructed Easy St. dorms will follow this Hilltop ground floor template.  There is a hint some of Dinand's collection might be dispersed to these study/learning spaces.

Fenwick theater is to be converted to two levels of academic space..  A third level would be the Studio Theater, but quite possibly, that theater will continue as such.  There is a hint that something may be done with Brooks Recital Hall, perhaps having it become a multi-use space?

With Wheeler categorized as primarily academic space, perhaps the lower floors of Wheeler will be converted to something like academic pods described for Beaven supra.

With respect to the off-campus properties owned by HC, my sense is that HC did not show future use(s) because it does not own sufficient contiguous properties at this point.  For example, there are four land parcels it does not yet own on the west side of College St. between Southbridge and Boyden St.  That said, if the master plan suggests that the tennis courts will need to be moved, then whereto?  Also, Worcester city ordinance requires HC to provide a certain number of parking spaces, and sacrificing the lot to the south of Hogan for a new building would require those spaces be provided elsewhere on the 'contiguous' campus, which I think could be interpreted as on the west side of College St.  HC may have sufficient parking spaces on campus under the city-required number that the loss of the parking spaces for the Hilltop residences would not require construction of a new parking lot.  
 
    

It is always possible that the Hilltop residences could be built, managed, and owned by a private entity for a term of years, which would reduce indebtedness for this slew of projects.  After all, the site for the Jesuit residence was bought by a private developer, and initial construction was paid for by a private developer.

I spent much of last evening in the crypt looking through many linear feet of Fr. Brook's correspondence. However, I interrupted my search on finding a document with information on the 2007 Campus Master Plan.

The 2007 Campus Master Plan set out a series of projects that were proposed to be initiated in three year, seven year, and 20 year timeframes. This document was a 2009 progress report on the projects.
A fourth project was the creation of what would become the Hoval, for which the landscape design had been completed.

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Below is a sketch of the campus in 2027, after buildout of the projects proposed in the 2007 campus master plan.



Of note, the Performing Arts Center where the tennis courts presently are. Luth as a 200 meter indoor track. Fitton without the east stands, the north and south stands are chopped off at the 10 yard line. The football team facility with locker rooms, meeting rooms, strength and conditioning to the east of Fitton. New residences (in yellow) appear to be mostly townhouse row style. (Figge and other new residences are near Williams and McKeon Rd.) The field house renovated on the original foot print. The tennis courts to the south of Fr. K. field. The hockey rink expanded with additional seating. (The football practice field is on Freshman Field.) A multi-level parking garage to the east of the Luth track. The Integrated Science Complex appears to be smaller than built.

The 2007 Campus Master Plan was not prepared by Sasaki.

A final note. I will not be returning to the crypt anytime soon, or not at least until I find a Haz-Mat suit. The dust, the spiders, the biohazards of rodent dung and urine. It was all too much!!

Crucis eyes did not deceive him.

Demolition permits issued last week for the three HC-owned houses below



^^^ Two City View (built 1920, 3,150 sq ft)



^^^ Eight City View (built 1938, 1,713 sq ft)



^^^ Ten City View (built 1920, 1,440 sq ft)

Land area for all three, about one half-acre total

No demolition permits for the other HC-owned houses on the south side of City View, or for 99 College St. the latter I think would be a candidate for demolition.

Difficult to tell from the webcam, but either the grass at the bottom of the slope of the City View townhouses was recently mowed, or soil has eroded down because of the recent heavy rains.

That’s exactly what I expect to happen, and creative use of long term bonds for construction across the board so as to not eat into the endowment capital.

VR said they started making some changes to Hogan over semester break, and more changes will be undertaken over the summer.  I inferred from his comments that they have started making changes in O'Kane, now that theater / performance arts has moved to Prior.

I expect much more of the master plan will be made public in the context of the upcoming capital campaign.