Wentworth Institute of Technology on Wednesday unveiled plans for its 31-acre campus in Mission Hill and Fenway, outlining a vision that includes hundreds of dormitory rooms and a new quad on what is now a surface parking lot.
During the next decade, the university plans to replace outdated dorms with three residence halls, creating 935 net new beds. Two of the dorms — a proposed 21-story, 672-bed tower and another 13-story, 522-bed facility— would be built on Huntington Avenue on either side of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s orange-and-green Tree House dorm.
Wentworth also plans to build an athletics field house, a welcome center, and new homes for its schools of architecture and design, engineering, and management, according to an institutional master plan filed with the Boston Planning and Development Agency.
“This ambitious plan reflects the good momentum we have as a university,” Wentworth president Mark A. Thompson said in a statement. “We’ll be transforming our campus, creating new dynamic spaces for learning, working, and community building.”
Institutional master plans are extensive planning documents outlining future real estate development projects for large colleges, universities and hospitals. The BPDA requires the plans to be updated at least once every decade.
Erik Cote, Thompson’s chief of staff, considers the school’s 2023-2033 plan the boldest the university has ever brought to the city.
“It reflects our ambitions as an institution, and our confidence in the programs we offer, and the investments we’re making,” Cote said.
A proposed five-story West Quad academic building would serve as the home for the School of Architecture and Design. Wentworth aims for the building to “frame a new western gateway into the core campus from the intersection of Ruggles Street and Huntington Avenue,” according to the BPDA filing.
The school also plans to raze a century-old former Boston Public School building that has “far exceeded its useful life” to create a modern facility for Wentworth’s schools of engineering and management.
Wentworth has 3,605 undergraduate and graduate students this year, with 3,724 students projected for 2025. Not all students are guaranteed housing, but the new dorms would allow the university to offer on-campus living to upperclassmen and graduate students, relieving some housing pressure on nearby neighborhoods, Cote said.
Another key element of Wentworth’s plan is transforming surface parking lots into green space, rather than developing a parking garage.
“We think the future is going to be less cars,” Cote said. “That allowed us to build more green space, which we’re really excited about.”
One park, which Wentworth is calling “The Grove,” is envisioned next to the 23-story residence hall as “a tree-lined quad that can be activated, programmed, and used by students for outdoor classes, movie nights, graduation ceremonies, and other activities,” the BPDA filing states.
Cote declined to specify cost estimates. Global construction costs have remained high since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent supply-chain disruptions. Wentworth is exploring options such as partnering with a private developer or a sale-leaseback deal.
“These projects are attractive, particularly in this climate, to real estate developers,” Cote said. “When we look at development partners, we’re interested in delivering these buildings faster.”
Wentworth has not set construction schedules for the project. Cote said construction on a residence hall on Parker Street could begin in 2025, and the first academic building could be built within five years.
Catherine Carlock can be reached at catherine.carlock@globe.com. Follow her @bycathcarlock.