After months of verbal wrangling, A deal may finally be a reality for Suffolk University and the Beacon Hill Civic Association (BHCA) that will make the new building at 20 Somerset Street a reality.
At a meeting of the BHCA last week, members of the Suffolk Task Force and BHCA member Rob Whitney told an audience of residents that after hours of lengthy negotiation, a deal had been reached with the university in principle. All that remains is for the BHCA Board of Directors to approve the deal with a vote, which was set to take place on Monday night, after the Times went to press.
Whitney said it took 19 hours of negotiation in the run-up to the meeting to hammer out a sheet of terms that was acceptable to both sides, but the end result will be a net plus for all parties. Chief amongst Suffolk's concession is the promise of new non-expansion zones that will limit its ability to build on the Hill in the future. "Suffolk gets a new art school, and we get a brand new non- expansion zone that will protect Beacon Hill," said Whitney.
In addition, Suffolk has promised to work to correct enrollment overages so that over a 10-year period, average enrollment never exceeds 5,000 full-time equivalent students. In the past, Suffolk spokesmen have stated and then exceeded enrollment targets, but this is the first time it has agreed to a mechanism that will correct overages. Whitney said the exact means of enforcing enrollment numbers was still being explored.
Suffolk has also agreed to an aggressive new policy on the construction of on-campus housing. While the original language of Suffolk's institutional master plan only calls for 50 percent housing capacity within the next 10 years, the new agreement with the BHCA calls on Suffolk to increase that capacity to 60 percent within 15 years and 70 percent within 20 years. It is hoped that an increase in dorms will reduce competition between residents and students for housing, and also decrease the number of students seeking off-campus housing in the neighborhood.
While some residents expressed skepticism because of the vague nature of Suffolk's housing promises - it was noted that no specific locations for new dorms are mentioned in the IMP (institutional master plan) - Suffolk Vice President John Nucci said the most important thing about the housing is one certainty: "We don't know where they will be built, but we know where they won't be built, and that's Beacon Hill," he said.
Suffolk has also agreed to close down two Beacon Hill facilities - the gymnasium in the Ridgeway Building on Cambridge Street and the cafeteria on Temple Street - as soon as an athletic facility and student center (both stated goals in the master plan) are constructed in other neighborhoods.
The BCHA will vote on the terms of the deal on Monday. The exact details of the deal, as provided by Suffolk University, are as follows:
• Suffolk agrees to expand a previously established non-expansion zone. The new zone will also include Upper Beacon Hill, the area between Charles Street and the Charles River, and the Park Street area.
• 73 Tremont Street, One Beacon and the Center Plaza buildings will be excluded from the non-expansion zone. Suffolk will not build a dorm at 73 Tremont Street or within the Center Plaza buildings.
• Suffolk agrees to build no new classroom spaces, or seats, at One Beacon unless an equal number of spaces are removed from Suffolk's academic buildings on Temple Street.
• Suffolk agrees to not build a new athletic center, student center, dormitory, classroom buildings or office buildings within the non-expansion zone.
• Suffolk agrees to put no new classroom seats or laboratory seats anywhere in the new zone.
• Suffolk will remove 400 classroom seats from the Temple Street area and relocate them to the proposed 20 Somerset Street academic building.
• Suffolk will cease institutional use of the Ridgeway Building on Cambridge Street when an athletic center is built.
• Suffolk will remove the cafeteria on Temple Street when a student center with a dining facility is constructed.
• Suffolk will limit enrollment to 5,000 undergraduate full-time equivalent (FTE) students over the next 10 years.
• Suffolk will increase its goal of housing 50 percent of its undergraduate students to 70 percent.
• Suffolk agrees to make its paid Boston Police details and neighborhood response unit a permanent part of its operation.
• Suffolk agrees to meet quarterly with the Beacon Hill Civic Association (BHCA) to discuss progress in meeting the terms of the master plan.
• The Beacon Hill Civic Association (BHCA) agrees to support the 20 Somerset Street project as proposed while reserving the right to comment on final design of the project.
• BHCA will support the Modern Theater project as proposed.
• BHCA won't oppose Suffolk's new Institutional Master Plan.

CAPTION: Capturing images like this is the primary reason why people take PhotoWalks around Beacon Hill and other Boston locales with photographer Saba Alhadi.

Think you know Beacon Hill? Even if you know every cobblestone, you probably don’t know Beacon Hill the way Saba Alhadi does – through the eyes of a history buff and the lens of a camera. Each week, dozens of residents and tourists alike follow Alhadi around Boston on a walking tour with a unique spin. Alhadi is the owner and founder of PhotoWalks, which operates five separate walking tours in the city, including one On Beacon Hill.
Alhadi was a travel agent for most of her career, but she always had a passion for history and for taking pictures. The self-taught photographer even has had a book published: “Boston in Photographs.” Eight years ago she decided to leave the world of cruises and airline tickets to do something she really loved.
“One day I was walking though Boston Common and I glanced over at the buildings on Beacon Hill,” she says. “That’s when inspiration struck.”
She decided to organize tours that would show people the city’s beautiful sights from a different perspective while educating them about history. PhotoWalks operates tours in the Back Bay, along the Freedom Trail, in the Public Garden, and along the Waterfront, in addition to on Beacon Hill.
“A lot of people who come to Boston overlook the most beautiful sights and really don’t know how to take pictures,” she says.
She welcomes photographers of all skill levels, ages and experience. Alhadi says she’s led tours of serious photographers with expensive equipment and weekend tourists with point and shoot cameras.
She also has led many Boston residents on tours, giving them a new way to look at their own neighborhoods.
“I have a lot of local people on our tours,” she says. “People like being tourists in their own city. And a lot of Beacon Hill people take my Beacon Hill tour.”
In fact, some of her favorite sights in all of Boston are on Beacon Hill. She loves the reflections in the windows of many of the Beacon Hill brownstones, and she teaches her participants to look at the reflections for a unique perspective. One particular house on Pinckney Street is particularly interesting, because a bust of Paul Revere and a gas lamp are usually viable in the home’s window reflection.
The Beacon Hill tour is one of Alhadi’s most popular, and it is offered year round, three days a week. The tour is about an hour and a half long, and it includes stops at the Shaw Memorial, the State House, and the residential areas on Pinckney Street, Acorn Street, Louisburg Square and Chestnut Street.
Walks can be booked for private tours, small groups or even school outings, but Alhadi says she always keeps the groups small to maximize the learning experience.
Alhadi has garnered so much positive attention for PhotoWalks that she says she has been approached to launch similar tours in other cities, a proposition she is considering. Not that conducting each of current tours herself, seven days a week, leaves her much time to think about expansion plans.
“It’s a lot of work, but I love it,” she says. “What I really enjoy is meeting people from all over. The goal is for people to learn to see things creatively.”

On Saturday, May 31, The Beacon Hill Bistro shined as local style divas modeled fashions, accessories and more from Wish, Moxie, The Ruby Door, Beauty Mark and others at “Sparkle” — an afternoon fashion show to benefit Rosie’s Place. Local celebrities and fashion divas donated their time to a sold out crowd as the cocktails flowed, the food was served and the gossip was dished. Seen here are Lisa Pierpont, editor of Boldfacers.com, Jenny Johnson co-host of NECN’s TV Diner, Rachel Baker, City-Style editor of Boston Magazine, Kelly Malone, on-air talent for Mix 98.5FM, Erica Corsano, fashion writer for Stuff@Night Magazine, and Rachel Solar, freelance fashion writer.

Suffolk University and the neighborhood

The agreement, albeit tentative, reached by the Beacon Hill Civic Association (BHCA) and Suffolk University concerning the future expansion of the university on Beacon Hill is of historic proportion.
The proposed pact guarantees the Beacon Hill neighborhood a non-expansion zone by Suffolk and that the university will cap its enrollment of undergraduates for the next decade.
The BHCA has approved Suffolk’s new academic building at 20 Somerset Street and its student housing near Downtown Crossing under the terms of the far-reaching agreement.
The long and bitter feelings that have existed between many in the neighborhood about the university’s impact there will hopefully be defused when this agreement is finally signed.
Key to bringing all sides together were John Nucci, Suffolk’s vice president, and John Achatz of the BHCA.
The university had hoped to reduce its impact on the neighborhood by constructing a dormitory on Somerset Street. Beacon Hill residents have complained long and hard about students renting residential spaces on Beacon Hill at the expense of their quality of life.
However, when the university stepped back and said it would withdraw its request to use the Somerset Building as an academic building, even then, the Beacon Hill neighborhood, represented by the BHCA, complained.
What became apparent to Nucci and Achatz was that a broader plan was necessary for the university to explain more precisely in writing where it was heading and how the neighborhood might be impacted by it.
When university spokesmen said they would shift development plans away from Beacon Hill and into less residential areas of the downtown, room existed between the parties to reach an agreement.
This compact is for both the university and the neighborhood to live by for the next 10 years.
It is a binding pact, negotiated in good faith.
We believe it is a fair pact, as well.
Both parties can face one another with the satisfaction of knowing that the acrimony is over, that the image of Suffolk University as an aggressor is the stuff of stale history and that the rights of the neighborhood have been upheld.
Once again, we praise the hard work of Suffolk Vice President Nucci and BHCA representative Achatz.
To their credit, they both showed glimmers of the great American Henry Clay, renowned great compromiser when he served in the Senate.
Suffolk has listened to the neighborhood and the neighborhood has agreed.
It’s back to the future for everyone involved.