Emerson College to Build More Dorms

After Boston conducted its first-ever census of off-campus student housing in response to overcrowding concerns, city officials decided the answer is to build more dorms.

Emerson College’s new dorm will be constructed on Boylston Street. The Boston Globe

January 14, 2015

2 minutes to read

Mayor Marty Walsh said he wanted to cut the number of students living off campus in half by 2030. To do so, universities have to add 18,500 beds – about 16,000 for undergraduates and 2,500 for graduate students.

Walsh announced this week that Emerson College has been the first to heed the call.

With 31 private and four public institutions of higher education, Boston is widely regarded as the college capital of America. This equals droves of students (around 136,000 full-time undergraduates and graduates, according to a city census) who need safe, affordable places to live.

Unfortunately, “safe,’’ and “affordable,’’ are relative terms, and for years, landlords have been providing shoddy off-campus housing for low costs that were appealing to Boston students.

When Boston University student Binland Lee died in an Allston house fire as a result of overcrowding in 2013, the issue came to the city’s forefront. Where Lee lived, there were nine tenants (the city permits no more than four undergraduates to live full-time in one unit), and there was only one exit from the floor beneath Lee’s.

Boston conducted its first-ever census of off-campus student housing, and found that of the 136,000 students enrolled, about 36,300 lived off campus and 36,500 lived on campus. The rest of the students lived in other municipalities.

Emerson College president Lee Pelton said the college has two downtown dorm projects underway that would add 670 beds to their Boston undergraduate housing capacity, increasing total housing by 33 percent.

Construction will begin on the first location, an 18-story facility with 380 new beds at 1-3 Boylston Place in April. It will be completed in summer 2017.

The second project involves renovating a downtown building at 80 Boylston Street, and is still pending the city permitting process, but Pelton said he doesn’t expect any impediments. This location would add 290 new student beds to the current 750 in an adjacent dorm building. Construction would begin in May 2017 and be completed by the summer of 2019.

“It’s a win-win for Emerson, and a win-win for the city of Boston,’’ Pelton said. He added that the new housing is specifically for existing Emerson students. He said they do not plan to increase the size of the overall student body.

The city will facilitate partnerships between colleges and private developers to build new dorms. The universities must agree to lease all or some of the buildings for dorms. Emerson has partnered with the Boston-based construction management firm Suffolk Construction for pre-construction, but has yet to make a final deal.

But there’s a long way to go to hit the mayor’s goal to reduce off-campus student housing.

Pelton said he wasn’t sure if Emerson’s move would influence other area colleges..“I can’t speak for other schools.’’