Largest campus construction projects in Massachusetts - Boston Business Journal

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Other sectors have slowed the pace of building. But universities continue to break ground. Here’s a quick refresher in Campus Construction 101.

Demand for many types of construction has waned in the past few years. An about-face in the life science sector has slowed the Boston area’s lab boom. Changing work patterns everywhere have dented demand for new office space. And high interest rates have made it difficult to get even much-needed new residential projects off the ground.

But when it comes to colleges, they’re continuing to break ground as they look to long-term needs.

Projects underway this school year include the renovation of a storage warehouse at MIT that dates back more than a century; a new dorm at Merrimack College; and a new academic building for UMass Amherst’s School of Public Health and Health Sciences.

In at least a couple of cases, projects are underway that will transform the school.

Below, see a photo gallery of 10 of the largest college construction projects now underway.

175 N. Harvard St. / College: Harvard University / Details: A new 68,000-square-foot home for the American Repertory Theater and a 14-story residential building with 264 housing units. / Location: 175 N. Harvard St., Allston / Completion: Summer 2026 for housing compo... Expand to read more

Gary Higgins / Boston Business Journal

Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology is building an entirely new campus in Roxbury, with a planned move from its longtime home in the South End. And Simmons University is building an 18-story tower that’ll consolidate its residential space for roughly 1,100 students with an athletics center, campus resources and other services. That will allow the college to redevelop its former residential campus along Brookline Avenue.

Add to that other projects on the horizon. Boston University is planning a 12-story Pardee School of Global Studies building on what is now a parking lot on Bay State Road, as well as a 17-story tower on Ashford Street on the western edge of campus.

Meanwhile, Northeastern University wants to build a replacement for Matthews Arena, a 1,370-bed, 23-story dorm tower on Columbus Avenue. NU also has two projects on either side of Huntington Avenue: a 1,000-bed dormitory, and a nearly 200,000-square-foot academic building.

Then there's Wentworth Institute of Technology, which won approval last month for a two-building, 640,000-square-foot lab facility on Huntington Avenue to take the place of Sweeney Field.

Tufts University is planning its largest dorm building, with 677 beds, with construction starting next spring. It'll open in 2027 next to the new Medford/Tufts Green Line station.

Lastly, Harvard’s plans in Allston are just getting started. In all, the university has plans to eventually remake a broad swath of the neighborhood extending south to the Massachusetts Turnpike.

On the next few pages are 10 of the biggest campus construction projects underway right now.

Total Mass. employees