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Campus proposals include relocating museum, housing students in warehouse

Campus proposals include relocating museum, housing students in warehouse

MIT is weighing the pros and cons of housing undergraduates in the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse building, among other proposed ideas for revamping campus.

In an email to the MIT community on Tuesday, Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, Provost Martin A. Schmidt, and Executive Vice President and Treasurer Israel Ruiz announced developments in the Kendall Square and east campus design process, and in the west campus planning study.

In the Kendall Square and east campus areas, the planning team aims to add “housing, connected open spaces, retail, innovation space, childcare, and commercial space,” as well as move the MIT Museum into that area.

Part of the plan includes adding a new graduate housing facility, which will replace the Eastgate Apartments but will be built on a different site nearby. The facility is expected to open before Eastgate closes to prevent a housing shortage, and may accommodate more than twice the number of graduate students that Eastgate currently does. Specifically, the planning team aims to accommodate 500-600 more graduate students across east and west campus.

The west campus planning study is also exploring the possibility of adding new graduate and undergraduate residences, renovating current residences, and incorporating more open spaces such as the landscape that is to be created on the site of Bexley Hall after it is demolished.

The email also mentioned potentially using the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse, located on Vassar Street, as “an exciting site for a mixed-use development.” Some ideas for this space include an undergraduate residence, or a maker space on the first floor with collaborative working environments on the above floors.

Barnhardt, Schmidt, and Ruiz also encouraged members of the MIT community to share their thoughts about campus planning by emailing mit2030info@mit.edu and attending community meetings.

—Alexandra Delmore



1 Comment
1
Alum almost 9 years ago

Would the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse be torn down or would it be repurposed for undergrad housing purposes? I'd imagine that the number of windows is too little for housing purposes.