A new residence hall at 401–403 Boston Avenue won approval from the Medford Community Development Board on February 5. The building, which will be located across from the Medford/Tufts MBTA Green Line station, will allow students easy access to public transportation and offer a new apartment-style housing option to more than 660 juniors and seniors. 

The housing represents a two-fold benefit: While the residence hall expands on-campus housing for juniors and seniors, the project also frees up more than 200 off-campus apartments for working families in Medford and Somerville. Apartments will have full kitchens and several floor plans accommodating between one to six residents, all in private bedrooms.

The mixed-use structure will include a retail component on the ground floor with the apartments on higher floors.

The project marks the first time a residence hall for Tufts students will be built through a public-private partnership, an approach in which the university is neither the owner, developer, nor operator of the building. The partnership includes Tufts University, Provident Resource Group-Medford Properties, and Capstone Development Partners. Capstone, a student housing and campus facilities real estate development company, will be responsible for the development and management of the residence hall. (Capstone will lead the local design and construction team, which also includes Elkus Manfredi as architect and Erland Construction as design-builder.) 

Through this collaboration, Tufts will significantly reduce construction costs and time and benefit from the development team’s expertise. Capstone has built more than 70 residence halls at universities across the country. “Capstone is best-in-class as a development partner when it comes to quality, on-time residential hall delivery,” said Barbara Stein, vice president for operations.

Executive Vice President Mike Howard said that the project exemplifies a “shared vision” for transformative improvements encompassing sustainability and infrastructure.

“The story of Tufts is inherently linked to the vitality and prosperity of our host communities,” said Howard. “As this project demonstrates, we can continue to strengthen those bonds further as we look to the future. Tufts will be an even stronger university—and a stronger partner to our host community—by creating more on-campus housing for our students.”

Benefits for a Host Community

With the opening of Joyce Cummings Center and the MBTA station and with new additions to the athletics complex, the intersection of Boston and College avenues has become a major gateway to the Tufts Medford/Somerville campus. A working group from Tufts collaborated with neighborhood leaders to develop a design that is sensitive to the residence hall’s prominent location on Boston Avenue.

Community benefits related to this project include strengthening ties to Medford. For example, Tufts will begin providing a new, free public shuttle to and from Medford Square to the university’s Medford/Somerville campus. The university will also make financial contributions to Medford’s Affordable Housing Trust and to a neighborhood improvement fund for homes near the residence hall.

The scope of the project also includes infrastructure improvements to Boston Avenue. Among the changes that will make Boston Avenue safer, greener, and more accessible: the university will plant new trees on both sides of the street, create new sidewalks and crosswalks, and install a Bluebikes station.

“Pedestrians will see a more attractive aesthetic and improved safety along Boston Avenue,” said Stein. “When you add the retail component of the new building to the mix, the improvements as a whole will bring a new vitality to the area.”

The new residence hall continues the university’s work to expand housing options for undergraduates. This includes extensive work done in CoHo (Community Housing), which renovates woodframe housing adjacent to campus. The university is also currently renovating Blakeley Hall to provide 120 beds of new undergraduate housing.

“When students live on campus, it makes a measurable difference in their education, to their engagement with the Tufts community, and to their lifelong connection to friends and to Tufts,” said Camille Lizarríbar, dean of students for the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering.

While expanding housing options for both students and residents of host communities is the top priority, the Boston Avenue project will also meet rigorous energy standards. The all-electric construction advances Tufts’ zero-carbon goals while also meeting Medford’s Stretch Energy Code, which includes encouraging the electrification of new buildings to help Massachusetts meet its net-zero emissions goal by 2050.

With preliminary site work beginning this spring, the building is scheduled to welcome new residents in the fall semester of 2027.