Boston College will build a new School of Social Work (BCSSW) building and athletic facility in Newton, BC spokespeople said at a meeting with the City of Newton on Thursday.
The new BCSSW building will be constructed on the former Mount Alvernia High School campus, which the University bought last October.
One reason BC chose to place the BCSSW building on Mount Alvernia’s campus is its proximity to BC Law School, which one BC spokesperson said could be an opportunity for collaboration between the two graduate schools.
“There’s currently a joint social work and law degree, and a lot of aspirations for collaborative research between the two campuses,” said Todd Symonds, principal architect at Goody Clancy architecture firm.
The Mount Alvernia campus is approximately 75,000 square feet, and BC plans to renovate 60,000 square feet of it, according to Symonds.
“We are looking at restoring a large portion of the facade, you know, basically making sure we bring it up to meet the energy code and building codes,” Symonds said.
BC plans to demolish two buildings on the former Mount Alvernia campus—Hayes Hall and a maintenance garage next to it. The Provincial House, located next to the main campus building, will remain unchanged, Symonds added.
In addition to libraries and workspaces for BCSSW students, the renovated campus will also host the Urban Catholic Teacher Corps, a BC program that houses teachers in the area, Symonds said.
The program’s 17 teachers moved into the Mount Alvernia campus last December, according to Jeanne Levesque, BC’s director of government relations.
BC spokespeople also announced that the University will build a new athletic facility for soccer and field hockey on the Newton Campus Sports Complex.
The 43,000-square-foot building—proposed for the site of the Quonset Hut in between BC’s soccer and field hockey fields—will include locker rooms, coaches’ offices, and bathrooms for spectators, according to Levesque.
”It’s not a replacement of the Quonset Hut, but it’s a new building to support the athletic functions out there for men’s and women’s soccer and field hockey,” Levesque said.
Like the Quonset Hut, the new athletic facility will also offer gym space for students living on Newton Campus, Levesque said.
“Students who are on Newton Campus—they will have access,” Levesque said. “They don’t want to come all the way to campus to play basketball. They could go in there or lift weights.”
The athletic building will be designed in Gothic style, similar to the Pete Frates Center on Brighton Campus, according to Levesque.
The University also bought 9 Old Orchard Road, a home on the corner of Beacon Street built in 1645, according to BC Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs Tom Keating.
According to Keating, the house was on the brink of foreclosure when BC bought it.
“[It] had been up for sale for quite some time,” Keating said. “It was being moved into foreclosure.”
The house was listed for just under $5 million, but BC bought it for $3.8 million on Oct. 2.
The University hasn’t yet decided how it will use the home, but Keating said the administration plans to maintain the property.
“We did purchase it, and we’re going to maintain it like we do all of our properties, especially on that Beacon Street side,” Keating said.
Correction (12/10/2024, 1:00 p.m.): This article has been corrected from a previous version to note that the new Social Work building will be constructed on the Mount Alvernia High School campus, not Mount Alvernia Academy.
