If approved and constructed, the building will alleviate crowding in the Economics and Government departments, which are currently crammed into the Littauer building.

Cobb's plan connects Coolidge Hall and the University Information Systems building on Cambridge Street via an underground tunnel.

The new Knafel Center for Government and International Studies will feature offices with windows and bookshelves, small seminar rooms, large classrooms, a conference center, a cafe, a library and a Harvard-MIT Data Center that will provide social science data to Harvard and MIT affiliates.

Mary H. Power, senior director of community relations calls the present plan "respectful" of the community's needs.

"We look at it as a win-win situation. It's been a character study in community participation," says Travis A. McCready, director of community relations.

Zewinski says the project has not progressed through Cambridge's complicated regulatory maze since the MCNCDC granted its approval. "[The Knafel Center] is by far the most complicated regulatory project I've dealt with," he says.

Harvard must obtain approval from the Cambridge Planning Board, the Board of Zoning Appeals and the City Council, but not necessarily in that order.