Developer Tishman Speyer, Harvard-Allston Task Force members, and local residents convened virtually Thursday to consider updated plans for Harvardâs proposed Enterprise Research Campus.
The meeting comes as Tishman Speyer is soliciting public comment on the project notification form they filed with the Boston Planning and Development Agency for the ERC on Feb. 2. The feedback period will close March 15.
The ERC, per the developerâs updated filings, will span six acres and include a hotel, a conference center, and two acres of greenspace. Tishman Speyer is aiming to break ground on the developmentâs main buildings in early 2022, according to the plans.
Nick J. Grieco, a guitarist, is known by his friends as the one among them that continued to live in Allston after the rest moved elsewhere.
Nick J. Grieco moved to Boston in 2006 for his first year at the Berklee College of Music and relocated to Allston soon after. Fourteen years later, heâs still there. Even after watching friends move to other cities, he chose Allston as the place to build his network and launch his music career.
âI think my circles of friends that left before â they totally see me as the guy who stayed,â Grieco says.
Grieco stays for the same reasons that compelled him to settle in Allston in the first place: He recognized the opportunities a diverse neighborhood with a rich arts scene could offer a young guitarist early in his career. Allston, known by some as âRock City,â has been a creative hub since the â60s, cultivating a punk and alternative rock scene that bred the likes of Aerosmith.
As questions arise over funding for the Massachusetts Turnpike project in Allston, state officials and local residents said they are considering residentsâ quality of life along with the projectâs funding sources and biggest beneficiaries.
Harvard has already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the project â formally known as the Allston Multimodal Project â which will replace the aging viaduct along Soldiers Field Road, straighten the Massachusetts Turnpike that runs through Allston, and clear up 130 acres of Harvard-owned land for development.
It will also improve bicycle and pedestrian pathways, establish the West Station stop on the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail line, and create more green spaces along Charles River, per the stateâs Department of Transportation website.