Pledging never to house students in its newest building, Tufts formalized an agreement with the Medford City Council for the $801,852 purchase of an abandoned school on Capen St. The University will remodel the 19,000-square-foot building to create faculty apartments.
During negotiations, which lasted several months, Tufts also agreed to set aside three of the building's 12 apartments for affordable housing, limiting eligibility for single residents to applicants with an annual income of $39,200 or less. Walnut Hill Properties, a Tufts-controlled real estate company, will formally own the building.
If Walnut Hill later sells the building to Tufts, the University pledged to pay property taxes in full, although its non-profit status would suggest it is tax-exempt.
Although Tufts' offer was $151,852 higher than Hillside Development, the next highest bidder, the city was not inclined to sell the school facility and land to a tax-exempt institution, according to Bruce Ketchen, Tufts' director of real estate property and property manager for Walnut Hill company. The property was worth more to Tufts because it lies so close to the Medford campus, Ketchen said.
Medford received 12 bids in total, and the city was prepared to accept an offer as low as $550,000.
While University trustees committed to building a new dorm on campus last spring, the need for faculty housing is also pressing, Ketchen said.
Tufts has not yet chosen a definite construction site.
In recent years, several faculty members have been lured to institutions that offer, in addition to higher salaries, lower-cost housing than is available in the Boston area. "There are an awful lot of schools competing for this pool of people," Ketchen said.
"We don't have sufficient graduate and faculty housing, and a lot of other institutions do," John Roberto, vice president of operations, told the Daily during the early negotiations.
The Medford City Council approved the purchase and sales agreement last Tuesday. Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn is reportedly satisfied with Tufts' efforts to comply with the demands of the city's "reuse" committee, which recommends development strategies for Medford's various vacant schools.
Along with the tax and affordable housing concessions, the University also agreed to deny residents on-street parking rights and to preserve a memorial in the adjacent playground.
The stipulation that students not be housed in the building allayed fears of neighboring residents who said they did not want unruly undergraduates living on their street.
