University administrators unanimously agree that culture and the arts must be represented in Allston, and all indications are that museums will be first.

All the scenarios Harvard’s hired planning firm has proposed involve moving at least some of the University art museums and other institutions, such as the Peabody and the Museum of Natural History.

Allston is hailed as a remedy to space problems—both for the acreage across the river and for the real estate that will be freed up in Harvard Square.

But this expansion will take years and most likely outlast the administrators who are currently fighting the battle.

“We’re only just beginning that conversation,” says Office for the Arts director Jack Megan. “What ought Harvard to be providing in terms of space not five, ten, 15 years out, but decades?”

Nor will the committee make any final decisions on allocating space in Allston. Instead, Megan says, the group will “inform the broad thinking about Allston.”

The advisory group has framed these long-term questions in terms of two likely scenarios previously ironed out by University planners: moving one or more graduate schools or relocating the sciences.

According to committee members, planners presented them with likely options for the museums under each scenario. If science labs are moved to Allston, the museums might wind up on the University’s 30-acre parcel in Watertown, just up the street on the Cambridge side of the Charles. Or if graduate schools relocate, the museums could accompany them.

Cuno says he worries about the implications for undergraduate academic life if the art museums move entirely to Allston.

The museums serve a teaching function, according to Cuno. Without “vast improvement to the transportation system between the Yard and Allston,” they would lose that capacity and be relegated to a weekend destination.

When planners recommended relocating the museums, Cuno says, they based their idea on a crude comparison of the total square footage the museums occupy in Harvard Square with the amount of space in Allston that could be set aside for the arts.

“They didn’t in any way place the museums in any particular place or describe anything about us…or take into account anything about the museums,” he says. “It wasn’t anything but a very gross or macro look at all of this without any attention to detail.”

Allston could address the inadequacy of the art museums’ current facilities, according to Cuno, but only so long as they get to keep their land in Cambridge too.

The art museums have room to display only a small fraction of their total collection. Allston could provide office space and off-site storage, as well as temporary exhibition space. That would relieve pressure on the University’s famed museums, which would stay next to the Yard.

“I think the museums need space that this side alone can’t provide,” Cuno says. “It’s clear that the future will require developing at other sites. And it’s likely, and probably helpful, that it be in Allston.”