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Harvard Business School gets bodacious Tata gift for new building; will also renovate old WGBH building
By adamg on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 4:06pm
Harvard Business School today announced plans for a new building for executives taking classes and for an "innovation center" whose goal is to marry interesting ideas from the other side of the Charles with MBAs who could commercialize them.
The announcements came as a surprise to Allston residents whom Harvard professes to want to have good relations with.
Ratan Tata, an Indian magnate who attended Harvard Business School and who owns the Taj Hotel in the Back Bay, is donating $50 million toward the cost of construction of a new $100-million classroom and dormitory building on vacant land along Soldiers Field Road. The Harvard Innovation Center will be in a refurbished Western Avenue building that formerly housed WGBH. The school estimates the costs of renovating the now dilapidated building at between $15 million and $20 million.
Nitin Nohria, dean of the business school, said the goal of the innovation and entrepreneurship center is to bring together researchers and students from across the Harvard community.
Mayor Tom Menino said the innovation center "is a sign of this university's committment to reactivating Western Avenue." The building no longer has a roof and has been extensively vandalized, Nohria said.
Nohria emphasized that the university has the money it needs in hand for both projects, so that the community doesn't have to worry about another project that ends right in the middle.
Menino said projects like these show that Boston is slowly coming out of its economic doldrums, with a spate of small to medium sized projects - $20 million to $40 million instead of the $100 million or larger projects of yore.
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Comments
Can't read the article
Laughing too hard at headline.
So they're going to put up an
So they're going to put up an expensive new building on a plot of land surrounded on three sides by existing buildings, and on the fourth by a limited-access highway. Good - that's a perfect site, and the construction will provide an economic boost. They're also going to rehabilitate and use a building vacated in advance of the planned expansion, and then left derelict when those plans fell through. Again, that's all positive. As it stands at present, it's an eyesore and a dead zone.
Does it fix all the problems of the neighborhood? Not by a longshot. But when Harvard does something good - pulling in, I might add, tens of millions from abroad to spend right here at home - why not praise them for it?
poor residents
This is going to be a nightmare for the Soldiers Field Residents. Will Harvard Housing accommodate the residents in any way ie: reduce the rent, transfer them to other harvard housing? The noise is going to be unbearable..just look what is happening at Peabody Terrace. Residents have to live in those apartment while the construction workers drill all day long. Does Harvard care in any way?