MCPHS Has Helped Worcester's Housing Market, Residents

PHOTO/Matt VOLPINI Monahan

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The presence of MCPHS University — formerly the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences — is unparalleled in downtown Worcester.

Over the past 13 years, the Boston-based graduate school has helped lead a revitalization of the area, purchasing vacant and underused properties and renovating them into state-of-the-art educational facilities that have brought 200 jobs and thousands of students.

President Charles F. Monahan said the decision to move into Worcester in 2000 came not from being a city resident himself, but from all Worcester has to offer in health care, including Saint Vincent Hospital, UMass Memorial Health Care and Reliant Medical Group's clinics.

And the school plans to double its city population over the next five years.

"A lot of that is the accreditation process, where we have to bring in our first class, then we can increase the class size," said Bryan Witham, director of admissions for the Worcester and Manchester, N.H., campuses. "It's controlled growth."

By September, MCPHS will offer nine degrees in Worcester.

A nurse practitioner program is starting in the summer and recruitment is underway for programs that will begin in September, including ultrasonography and dental hygiene. English as a second language will also be offered to serve some of the school's 600 international students, whose numbers are also expected to double.

'Perfect Place'

The mix of property available for MCPHS to purchase in Worcester adds to the school's push for growth.

"Worcester is the perfect place for a health science school," Monahan said.

And city officials agree. Last year, Monahan was grand marshal of Worcester's St. Patrick's Day parade. He and MCPHS students walked with a banner that read "Thank You Worcester."

City Manager Michael V. O'Brien said that what MCPHS has given to the city can only be called priceless.

"What (MCPHS has) been able to do is take that modern curriculum, take that modern need for technology and work them into the context of these buildings, and they've spent well over $350 million in these buildings and they've done so while bringing students and faculty into downtown," he said.

The school has less than 400 housing units, yet most MCPHS students aren't from the area, so about 800 of them rent nearby. While that's good for the local real estate market, Monahan said students want to know about housing options when they consider a school. So last year, MCPHS agreed to buy 29 condominiums at North High Gardens on Salisbury Street and signed an agreement to lease 26 yet-to-be-developed micro-apartments on Main Street.

Then, in January, it acquired a 3.5-acre property adjacent to its buildings in Lincoln Square, formerly owned by Morgan Construction Co., for $2.9 million. Monahan said the school will redevelop the site — which has two attached buildings totaling more than 90,000 square feet — into housing.

For these reasons and others, which include the school's purchase and $10-million renovation of the former Crowne Plaza Hotel, Monahan said the school is often viewed as an economic development company.

But it's also a community resource. While the school pays full taxes on its properties that are not used for academics, such as the Morgan property, it has a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) deal with the city, in which it makes annual payments worth 20 percent of its properties' assessed value. (Since 2008, the school has paid more than $287,000, according to the school.) It was the first PILOT deal the city made, and it supports the Worcester Public Library, which, around 2008, was facing cutbacks due to financial constraints.

"We bought all these buildings and we use fire and city services, and the city's been good to us," Monahan said. "… our students use the public library … and that was the right place for us to designate that (money)."

Additionally, through its Pharmacy Outreach Program, area residents can get help managing the costs of their prescriptions and learning about their medications. Also, students in the pharmacy program participate in a Service Learning program in which they volunteer with about 50 area schools and nonprofits. And next fall, when the school brings its Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene to its building at 10 Lincoln Sq., the public will be able to get dental care for little or no cost.

The school also rents out the top of 25 Foster St. free of charge to area nonprofits for events, and plans to open a similar room at Lincoln Square in the fall.

"(Monahan) gets that a stable community is a great asset to be within for them to thrive," O'Brien said.

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