Returning University of Massachusetts Boston community members will continue to witness the ongoing transformation of the UMass Boston campus in the fall, as part of the University’s 25-year master plan. “There will be scaffolding around the Healey Building as phase II roof work continues. The Utility Corridor and Roadway Relocation (UCRR) project will continue to expand its utility relocation sites and the temporary roadway through the Campus Center lawn will be used,” said manager of Master Plan and Construction Communications Holly Sutherland.
In addition, the HarborWalk project will be complete, the start of baseball field construction will be underway at BC High, and General Academic Building No. 1 (GAB) will be more complete, Sutherland explained.
GAB, which is anticipated to open in Spring 2016, will house the art and performing arts departments, as well as new chemistry labs, with 26 classrooms. It will serve a large cross-section of students, faculty, and staff through diverse programming that includes state-of-the-art general purpose classrooms, specialized teaching and performance spaces, faculty and staff offices, a café, a student lounge, and study spaces.
“[GAB] is designed to meet the needs of our growing student population and increases academic offering, enhances our teaching and student environment,” said UMass Boston Chancellor Keith Motley, at the early phase of this construction.
The $4 million HarborWalk project, which will be complete in the fall, will improve the quality of access and accessibility to the waterfront to the university community members and the general public. The new stretch will feature benches, lighting, gathering spaces, native plants, interpretive signs with historical narratives, and an area to display artwork, as described on the University website.
According to Sutherland, the UCRR project will continue to expand its utility relocation sites. There will be more way-finding and traffic signs, and a temporary road through the campus center lawn. Along these lines, Sutherland reassured the university community members the UCRR expansion of its utility relocation sites will not affect their commute to campus. “This will not impact the shuttle service,” she said.
She explained that the URCC expansion of its utility relocation sites will only prevent pedestrians from accessing the HarborWalk from the front of the Campus Center. She recommended that those who will walk to the HarborWalk use the door near the Atrium café and walk along the road between the former track and the GAB site crossing University Drive North, taking a right in front of the Massachusetts State Archives building and accessing the HarborWalk adjacent to the archives.  
There will be parking expansion at the Bayside. Bayside Building, whose partial roof collapsed in early March following the record-breaking snowfall in Boston, will be removed.
All these changes are part of the university’s innovative 25-year master plan, which to aims to transform the campus into a cutting edge, sustainable, and attractive environment.
This past spring, as per the master plan, the university opened the new Integrated Sciences Complex building, which was its first new academic building in nearly 40 years.
This top-notch science building includes wet and dry research laboratories, support space, undergraduate biology teaching labs, an infant cognition lab, and two new research centers—the Development Sciences Research Center and the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy.
With the development of the 25-year master plan, the campus will continue to transform, and the best seems yet to come. A 1,000-bed freshman residence hall that will be located at one of two sites site near the Peninsula and Harbor Point apartments is targeted to open in 2017. Another General Academic Building, No. 2 ,which will be located on the former South Lot near the Campus Center and Wheatley Building, is targeted to open in 2018.