Boston College Archives to Build New Archive for Catholic Religious Objects

Boston College has filed plans with the Boston Planning Department to construct a three-story, approximately 45,000-square-foot building to house collections of religious materials, “as well as limited artwork and cultural artifacts” on a hillside between its Library of Theology and Ministry and its St. John’s Seminary property on Lake Street in Brighton.

Construction will require cutting down 47 trees, but BC says most of them are not in very good shape and will likely have to be cut down soon, even without the new building being built:

The proposed construction site is a forest that has been unmanaged since the Catholic Archdiocese owned the property and remains unmanaged to this day. As a result, most of the stand is in fair to poor condition. Many of the oak species have dead or dying branches, root problems, or decaying wood. The hemlocks suffer from hemlock woolly adelgid, which is cost prohibitive to treat adequately. Although some are in fair condition today, they will need to be removed in the near future as a result of this decay and disease.

The school says it will plant 77 trees around the new building as replacements. They will be smaller than the trees that are there now, but they will grow larger. The school says its Brighton campus, where the building will be located, currently has 35 percent tree cover, and that the new plantings will maintain that percentage.

BC says the building will use all-electric heating and air conditioning, and that existing parking on campus has enough space that no new spaces will be needed.

Boston College Catholic Archives Building Archives.