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A Boston real estate developer is exploring plans to build a 200-room hotel behind the Harvard Club of Boston in Back Bay, accelerating the potential transformation of the western end of Newbury Street.
Trinity Financial has notified neighborhood organizations and begun community meetings about a planned redevelopment.
At an outreach meeting held Thursday at the club, Trinity Financial executive Abby Goldenfarb and club officials outlined the vision for the property, said Parker James, co-founder of the Charlesgate Alliance community organization. The project could include new hotel construction on the club’s parking lot fronting on the Newbury Street extension, and partial demolition and upgrades to the club’s athletic facilities.
“They appeared to be very concerned about the abutters’ perspective,” James said. “We are actually in favor of any development that’s actually going to improve the neighborhood.”
In a prepared statement, the Harvard Club said the plans are in the preliminary stages.
“The Harvard Club of Boston is currently exploring options for meeting both member needs and ADA requirements for our Back Bay location,” the club stated.
The club’s two properties total 1.1 acres. The 0.64-acre parcel at 374-380 Commonwealth Ave. contains the 13,616 clubhouse building and is assessed at $13 million. The nearly half-acre parking lot at 415 Newbury St. is assessed at $3.5 million.
Founded in 1908, The Harvard Club completed the Back Bay clubhouse in 1913. The club, which accepts membership applications from graduates of Harvard, Yale, MIT and Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, also has a downtown location at One Federal St.
The club spent $16 million on renovations to the Back Bay property in 2015, including new dining spaces and an upgraded athletic center, according to its web site.
The plans surface as another Boston developer is seeking approval for a 545,000-square-foot mixed-use project less than a block away. Samuels & Assoc. has proposed a large air rights project above the Massachusetts Turnpike at the entrance to the Prudential Tunnel. The project includes a 16-story office tower and 13-story hotel-condominium building on MassDOT parcel 12.
“Parcel 12 is going to help, and this [project] might help,” the Charlesgate Alliance’s James said. “The whole neighborhood is going to change, and we hope it will be entirely for the better.”
