Suffolk University redevelopment

By Alli Knothe/Boston.com Correspondent

Suffolk University will shift its campus closer to Boston’s downtown and build a $62 million classroom complex that will modernize its academic programs and facilities, officials announced in Nov. 2012.

The real estate moves will result in the sale of two of Suffolk’s buildings on Beacon Hill and remove the noisy student traffic that has often put the university at odds with its residential neighbors. Two other classroom buildings in the neighborhood will be converted into administrative offices.

Meanwhile, Suffolk will build a new, eight-story classroom complex a couple blocks away, at 20 Somerset St., where it will also create a public park on what is now a windswept, empty lot. The location currently hosts an old government office building that will be demolished next year.

Although its classrooms are only moving a few blocks, Suffolk’s shift will center the campus more firmly in the city’s downtown, where the university houses most of its students and its law school. The new building, designed by the architecture firm Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, will be glass and stone and contain a new dining hall and about 1,100 classroom seats. It is unclear when construction will begin.

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