The Lady And Her Lot

It's only a small piece of land in Harvard Square, but there are those who think it can be used to accomplish a world of good.

When the Archdiocese of Boston announced that it would accept bids later this year from real estate developers seeking to build on what is now a parking lot for St. Paul's Church, people started thinking. Some thought it would be a good idea to build a fancy hotel or luxury condominiums on the DeWolfe St. site. Others thought the property would be a suitable site for Harvard graduate student housing.

Still others thought it would make sense to build an experimental community project on the property, sandwiched between Leverett and Quincy Houses, that could unite people of differing backgrounds and diverse incomes under one roof.

One of those quixotic Cantabrigians is Jana Kiely, co-master of Adams House and a woman who thinks the plot of land close to the river's edge can be put to more noble use than profit-making.

"Just take one drive through this city and you'll see how important such a project would be," Kiely says. "We need to convince people that you don't take care of social problems by sticking people below a certain income into some ghetto.

"Look at how people suffer from the lack of community in our society. What we have are islands of people with the same income, breeding the distrust that makes for violence and that makes for greed."

To help combat this social ill, Kiely and a group of Cambridge and University activists envision constructing "a model type of community" in which homeless and low-income families would live and interact with moderate-income Cambridge families and Harvard affiliates. But the plan for an experiment in "totally income-integrated" living has run up against a familiar stumbling block that has fallen in the path of many similar idealistic projects before it: money, or the lack thereof.

While such a project would be expensive to build and costly to operate, professional realtors say it undoubtedly would not be a moneymaker. Housing for transients and low-income families cannot compete with the posh condos and fancy boutiques which pay Harvard Square's top price of $60 per sq. ft. in rental fees.

Further complicating the plan is the Archdiocese's desire to use the valuable land--the most valuable undeveloped property left in the Square--as a source of income to rebuild its crumbling Boys Choir School and the Harvard-Radcliffe Catholic Student Center on the north side of Mt. Auburn St. As a result, any financing scheme for the Kiely project has to take into account not only operating and construction expenses, but also the church's desire to get top dollar for its property lease.

To find out just how much money is needed to implement this innovative proposal, the Kiely group approached the Harvard Planning Office and asked it to estimate how much a mixed-income project on that site would cost.

"We listened to them describe what they thought ought to happen on the site," says Robert A. Silverman, director of the Planning Office located high atop Holyoke Center. "We developed hypothetical numbers for them, what their concept would amount to in bricks and dollars."

But the results of what Silverman calls his "academic excercise" were not that encouraging. According to Harvard's computations, the Kiely plan, after financing and operating costs were added up, would lose nearly $600,000 annually.

One participant in a meeting of the activists last January paraphrased a popular comedian to describe the gap between the group's desires and its resources. "You can be millionaire, and never pay taxes," the local activist said. "First, get a million dollars..."

Enter Harvard

One place it made sense to look for such a great sum of money was the University, which owns 25 percent of the land in Harvard Square and is already the largest property-owner in Cambridge. Last month Kiely met with President Derek C. Bok to convince him that the University should help underwrite the public-private housing complex. "I tried to show him the educational advantages of the project and why it would be good for Harvard and the community," she says.

But Bok was not very encouraging, either. Kiely says he told her that "as an individual he was sympathetic to the proposal, but that as the person in charge of Harvard's money, he didn't think something like it could be agreed to by the Harvard Corporation."

While Bok cited the cost of the proposal as the major impediment to the Corporation's agreeing to finance the project, many in the community insist that the University bears some responsibility as a corporate citizen of Cambridge to pitch in.

"Harvard should [fund this proposal] to make reparations for nwhat it has done to the community in the past," says local activist William Cunningham, referring to the University's reputation for numerous land acquisitions during the '60s and '70s. Harvard, the Cambridge resident says, "has a false reputation for being willing to do things for the community out of its own pocket." Cunningham says the St. Paul's project is an opportunity for the University to do something beneficial, useful and tangible for a community gouged by Harvard's expansion toward the center of Cambridge. He hopes students will rally behind the Kiely plan and demand that Harvard accept what he claims is its responsibility to the community. "What's the purpose of a university, anyway?" he asks.

But City Councilor David E. Sullivan says the "hard part will be to get Harvard to take [the proposal] seriously; the University doesn't see how it will benefit in the direct sense." After observing how Harvard was embarassed last winter by its attitudes toward homeless men sleeping on the Leverett House grates, Sullivan says he is hopeful that the Ivory Tower will accept its responsibility as "a corporate citizen" and help finance the plan. "It's possible the city would be willing to chip in," Sullivan says. "I'd certainly support it."

Budget Constraints

Bok reportedly told city councilors last winter that the University is facing a potentially massive financial squeeze due to budget cuts in the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction act. John Shattuck, Harvard's vice president for government and public affairs, calls Gramm-Rudman reductions "a large cloud hanging over the financing of higher education." And "in that context," the University official says, "it would be increasingly difficult for Harvard to raise money for...things it would otherwise like to fund."

All roads in resolving this matter, most agree, eventually lead back to the church. "The primary focus at this point should be on the church and the kind of profit it wants to make," Shattuck says.

Thomas P. Healy '82, the church's director of development, makes it clear that a non-profit organization like St. Paul's needs to make a good deal of money off of the land, regardless of what kind of development is eventually built upon it.

"The price will be the same in either case," he says. "The Kiely group will have to match a price for the land a profit-oriented development would pay." But even if the church prefers a plan like Kiely's, spokesmen are hesitant to let on that it is.

"We can't forfeit our bargaining power," says Healy. "To rule out any type of development would be unwise...If we eliminate a profit-oriented development from the bidding process, then the price of the land won't be competitive."

Professor of Psychiatry Robert Coles '50, who is interested in adding a community counseling center at the corner of DeWolfe and Mt. Auburn, is critical of both Harvard's lack of interest in the project and the church's stance on the matter.

"Sometimes," he says, "we have to pray long and hard for the church as well as for ourselves.

Divine Intervention

But it appears someone may answer such prayers. President Bok has referred the Kiely proposal back to the Planning Office, and its director says that his office will "take a look at the program and see if we can't make some modification that would make the project financially feasible." And, according to a recent paper distributed by the Kiely group to city council members, such an adjustment may be possible.

The original Planning Office estimate, theletter states, was based upon what it calls"conventional financing schemes." But theactivists claim in their letter that through someinnovative financing plans, their proposal isfinancially feasible. By raising $1.5 million fromthe outset, borrowing subsidized state and federalhousing loans, and getting some labor andarchitectural costs donated, they think they cansignificantly lower the cost of their development.

But Silverman says "$1.5 million is a lot ofmoney to raise" and that the Kiely letter does notaddress the price tag on the property. Healy,though, says that there may be room for some "giveand take" in the price of the lease the churchdemands.

The church's development director also saysthat the Archdiocese will have to carefully weighwhat kind of contrast there is between a profitand non-profit proposal. "If Mrs. Kiely has awonderful proposal, and the alternative issomething the community is very much against," hesays, then the Archdiocese might be tempted toaccept a bid that was not quite as lucrative asone from a profit-oriented development.

All in all, Kiely is optimistic that her groupcan show the city, the University and theArchdiocese the benefits each can receive byhelping to build her project. But most important,she says, are the benefits that will be derived bylower-income families who are in dire need ofassistance. "We need to stop this trendsomewhere," she says, nothing the proliferation ofconstruction in Harvard Square catering toupper-income clientele. "If everything is given tocondominiums, the result is more ghettos.