The University is currently looking to buy the Lorin Low Dame School in Medford with hopes to use it as an administrative building.
Tufts submitted one of many proposals to redevelop the building. According to Directory of Community Relations Barabra Rubel, several of the other plans proposed making condominiums or apartments out of the building.
The building was originally used to house the Medford aldermanic chamber.
"Walnut Hill [Properties and] Tufts submitted a proposal for use as an administrative office building," Rubel said. "The people who attended the first community meeting favored the administrative office use over residential use."
Walnut Hill Properties is hired by the University to purchase properties for Tufts around the Medford/Somerville campus.
A community meeting to discuss the proposed Tufts project was held last Thursday. The flyer for the meeting stressed in bold that "most importantly, the re-use will not be for student use," but also stated that "the consensus of [the] neighborhood [is] that an acceptable re-use of the Dame School complex is for administrative office space."
As a follow-up to the meeting there will be a Request for Proposals, at which both the University and Walnut Hill will have to submit a specific plan including the price they are willing to pay for the building.
Rubel stressed that "there are no guarantees at this point that Tufts will win the right to purchase the building," but she pointed out that Tufts already [has] a relationship with that neighborhood with the presence of the Eliot Pearson Childrens' School and Department of Early Childhood Development, and the construction of the Gantcher Center. If Tufts was to acquire the Dame School, "it would mean an extension of the neighborhood we already interact with regularly," Rubel said.
The Dame School, located on George St., was named after Tufts alum and former Trustee Lorin Low Dame.
