Harvard's Allston Campus

Yeah, it's going to happen.

From Corie Lok's blog:

The 69-page report - PDF, submitted [Jan 11th] to the Boston Redevelopment Authority for review, proposes some pretty big changes to the Allston landscape. Here are the highlights:

-putting part of Soldier's Field Road, the road that snakes alongside the river on the Boston side, underground
-building a new footbridge
-rebuilding and widening the existing Weeks pedestrian bridge to make room for bicycles and shuttles between the campuses
-creating a new Harvard Square-like Barry's Corner at the corner of North Harvard Street and Western Ave.
-new streets, plazas and park space in Allston
-new shuttle bus services

Interdisciplinary science is central to this plan: 1.5 million square feet of new space for science in the next 20 years and a potential 2 million more beyond that. There are even plans for a 100-foot wide pathway called Academic Way, "...useful for interdisciplinary meetings, conversation, and sitting," according to the report. One of the first new buildings to be built will be one for the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and construction could start as early as this year.

And it looks like most of the basic science labs in the biomedical departments will be moving there.

From the Boston Globe:

Several influential department heads at Harvard Medical School are discussing the possibility of moving hundreds of researchers and staff from the Longwood medical area to Harvard's emerging campus in Allston.

The proposal under discussion, though still in very preliminary stages, could shift nearly half of the people now occupying the iconic quadrangle at the heart of the medical school -- up to 70 professors and 500 to 700 staff members -- to a new 1-million-square-feet building in Allston.

...

The move under discussion would shift the medical school's basic science researchers -- those examining the building blocks of life such as cells and genes -- to Allston, but not those studying drugs or medical devices, which frequently require clinical trials on humans, according to a Harvard official with knowledge of Allston planning.

So what's in store for the future? There hasn't been too much talk around the Longwood Campus, mostly because these events will happen way after most of us postdocs and gradstudents will have left. But here's a prediction from the Harvard Crimson's Crystal Ball:

Now that Harvard has official plans to house undergrads in Allston, the Quad will secede from the University and be annexed by Canada. Curling, anyone?

Interesting ...