The law school has been the most vocal about its reluctance to leave its campus in the North Yard. The faculty resolved last year to stay put, and is currently working on a long-range plan for expansion within Cambridge.

“People can’t imagine being away from the heart of things,” Grogan says, gesturing out his Mass Hall window at Harvard Yard. “They’re tethered to the Yard.”

As the space squeeze threatens expansion plans, Grogan says, schools will be more receptive to a transplant.

“You can go to the law school and say, ‘you’re hemmed in. We’ll give you all the space you need plus 50 percent to grow,’” he says.

Knowles and the Peabody Museum have been stumping for a new public museum in Allston that would free up space in the North Yard for FAS expansion, making popular exhibits like the glass flowers more accessible to tourists, and creating modern facilities to properly store the collections.

Buying Allston

The plans for Allston began in the late 1980s under president Derek Bok, when Harvard quietly began to buy up Allston land surrounding the HBS campus.

“There was no place left to expand in Cambridge,” Spiegelman says.

HPRE currently estimates that in fifteen years, Harvard will exhaust all potential to grow in Cambridge.

“You’re president in the late 1980s, and if you start thinking about 2020 then buying the Allston land starts to make a lot of sense,” McCluskey says.

From 1988 to 1994, Harvard hired a third party, Beal Properties, to purchase Allston land as it became available, acquiring 52 acres in 14 parcels scattered throughout the area around HBS for $88 million, and became the unknown landlord of a Star Market, a Honda Dealership, a Conrail warehouse, and row of auto repair shops on Windom Street.

Harvard’s purchases became public in June 1997, and drew outrage from the city and the community that they were made in secret. Mayor Menino said the purchases showed the University’s “arrogance,” and community relations with Boston plummeted.