Suffolk Set to Build New Residence Hall

By Ali Bhanpuri

DOWNTOWN—When Lauren Berardino received her acceptance letter from Suffolk University in December of 2006, she immediately submitted her housing deposit to be first in line for housing, she says.

Because the university’s housing system is organized on a first-come-first-serve basis and does not guarantee housing to incoming freshman, Berardino says she knew she had to send in her deposit quickly.

“[Living on campus] is part of the college experience,” says Berardino, 19, a sophomore at Suffolk. “That’s how you meet friends.”

As incoming undergraduates compete for on-campus housing, Suffolk plans to build a 12-story residence hall at 523-25 Washington St. in Downtown Crossing at the site of the historic Modern Theatre. The new residence hall is part of the school’s 10-year Institutional Master Plan approved by the city over the summer.

“It’s been exciting to be on the ground floor of the planning for the Modern Theatre project,” says Nora Long, the theater department marketing and special projects supervisor in a Suffolk newsletter. “Suffolk will restore this historic space, which will give the university and the theatre department more visibility in the city.”

The $42 million housing and studio project features 197 beds atop the renovated Modern Theatre and increases the university’s housing outreach to more than 1,200 students or nearly a quarter of all undergraduates. With about 5,000 undergraduates, the school has also had to shelter students at the Holiday Inn on Cambridge Street and the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Downtown Crossing. The university did not return messages.

Berardino supports the school’s goal of expanding housing but is concerned about the changes made to the Modern Theatre.

“I think it’s awesome that Suffolk is expanding housing, and I think it will make the school grow in popularity,” she says. “I do feel, however, that the Modern Theatre is a classic that should stay as is.”

Louis Rocco, 18, is guaranteed housing for his first two years as a student in the honors program and says some of his peers “would die” for that assurance.

The university’s master plan includes proposals for a $68 million 10-story academic building located at 20 Somerset St., the site of the former Metropolitan District Commission. Designs for the academic building, which will become the permanent home for Suffolk’s New England School of Art & Design, now in the Back Bay, include an art gallery, 10 general-purpose classrooms and a memorial for homicide victims.

The university expects the residence hall construction to be completed by the summer of 2010 in time for a 2011-opening for the academic building, according to a university newsletter.

“I think it will be really good for the Suffolk community as a whole because art students will be closer and can be a part of the school instead of being so far away,” says Beckee Birger, 20, a junior who gives tours of the design school to prospective students.

Birger says the design school’s closer proximity to the campus’ center will allow those who “aren’t in the art school” to “learn about it and utilize it for their degrees.”

The master plan also includes proposals for the future development of a student center and an athletic center. Sophomore Allison Poyser, 18, says the student center should have been a higher priority than the new dormitory.

“I feel that as a student, a union would be more beneficial to the Suffolk community than a new dorm,” she says. “A new dorm only benefits freshman and does not create a community—something I think we lack the most at the school.”