MALVERN, PA — Balfour Beatty’s Campus Solutions is partnering with Wentworth Institute of Technology on a $200 million residence hall in Boston that will add 972 beds as the university seeks to house about 75% of its students on campus over the next decade.
The 18-story, 202,000-square-foot First-Year Tower Residence Hall is the largest capital project in Wentworth’s history and is expected to open to students in August 2028. Construction is underway, with a formal groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for Sept. 17.
Malvern-based Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions is working with BOND and Perkins&Will on the project, which will consolidate Wentworth’s entire first-year residential class in one building for the first time.
The tower is part of Wentworth’s 10-year Institutional Master Plan, under which the Boston university intends to add about 1,400 beds and raise the share of students living on campus to approximately 75%.
That expansion could also shift some student demand away from Boston’s off-campus rental market. Wentworth expects the project to increase its housing capacity while adding pedestrian connections and transportation infrastructure in surrounding neighborhoods.
The residence hall will include dining venues, gathering spaces, student lounges and collaboration areas across its residential floors.
Plans call for an all-electric building designed to achieve Passive House standards, which emphasize lower energy consumption and tightly controlled indoor environments. Balfour Beatty described the tower as among the first all-electric residence halls of its kind in Massachusetts.
The project moved from planning toward construction on an accelerated schedule, according to the university.
“Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions helped us move from a vision of the tower to breaking ground in remarkable time, while keeping our students at the center of every decision,” Wentworth President Mark A. Thompson said.
Amy Aponte, senior vice president at Balfour Beatty Campus Solutions, noted delivering a development of the project’s scale on the university’s timeline required close coordination between the partners.
The tower is intended primarily for first-year students and will bring 972 residents into a single campus building. Wentworth expects the additional housing to support its broader effort to expand its residential population while reducing reliance on housing beyond the campus.
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