Allston Meeting Highlights Art Museum

The University’s future campus in Allston will still feature a contemporary art museum and stem cell research facilities, University officials told a group of Allston residents last night.

The presentation to the Harvard-Allston Task Force suggests that momentum is building for the University’s development of its land holdings across the Charles River, though planners expressed some frustration with the slow pace of Harvard’s decision-making process, mentioning several times their attempts to pressure the University to come to a decision about the ideas it has been batting around since last spring.

“We’re pushing the University really hard to make up its mind,” said Chief University Planner Kathy Spiegelman.

The members of the Harvard-Allston Task Force, which will review the institutional plan which Harvard must present to the City of Boston before it can build across the river, were enthusiastic yesterday toward the idea of a new contemporary art museum that would be incorporated into the new campus.

“This could really be something that puts the area on the map,” said task force member John Cusak.

At the meeting, Director of the Harvard University Art Museums Thomas W. Lentz also said that the Fogg Art Museum, which will undergo renovations in the near future, may relocate some of its offices and collections to the Citizens Bank building in Allston.

The permanent site of the new contemporary art museum, however, is likely to be near Barry’s Corner on Western Ave., according to preliminary designs.

The new campus’s hub will be the new science buildings, which will add as much as one million square feet of space over the next ten years, Spiegelman told the roughly two dozen people at the meeting.

She said the University hopes to develop half of that square footage within the next five years.

“There’s a real sense of urgency to get this research going,” said Russ Porter, Harvard’s administrative director of the life sciences.

Porter said the labs will be designed to facilitate interdisciplinary stem cell research with the intention to ensure that all aspects of the research can take place in one building.

“They’re looking to do sort of soup to nuts, one stop shopping in one place,” Porter said.

The new science labs could contribute as many as 1,000 new jobs to the local economy, Spiegelman added.

Spiegelman also hinted that an announcement of an architect for the science labs could be announced within the next two weeks.

“We’re really close to announcing the architect for the project,” she said. “We tried really hard to get all the internal boxes checked so we could announce it at this meeting.”

­—Staff writer Natalie I. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.