After more than a century of sporting competitions and community events, Northeastern University’s Matthews Arena, formerly Boston Arena, is nearing the end of its lifecycle.

The focus of a December 10 Boston Planning Department (BPD) meeting, the University detailed plans to demolish the arena and begin construction of a state-ofthe-art multipurpose athletics facility by the end of 2025. The project stirs up both excitement and reservation, as residents weigh the loss of a cherished piece of Boston’s sports history.

The oldest ice hockey arena in the world and the original home of both the Boston Celtics and Bruins, the arena had begun to show its age in recent years. Existing structural deficiencies could not be surmounted in the long term, the University wrote in the June filing of its new 10-year Institutional Master Plan (IMP).

At the BPD meeting, Viktorija Abolina, Northeastern’s associate vice president of campus planning and design, said that a history of two destructive fires and many renovations had already erased many of the building’s original features. However, Northeastern will be consulting with the Boston Landmarks Commission about the possibility of preserving the most intact relic of the arena’s legacy, the iconic red brick archway.

“We heard loud and clear that there’s a lot of interest about preserving the arch or finding a way to repurpose it and repurpose the history that is associated with it,” Abolina said. “The elements of the arch that are left are beautiful and original, but there have been a lot of modifications to it. It’s been modified so many times that we’re not certain it will withstand any kind of move or disassembly.”

As an Institutional Master Plan (IMP) is a 10-year plan meant to give the city extended notice of all possible projects the University is considering over the next decade, Northeastern acknowledged that the majority of projects in the plan would likely not be undertaken.

This was one point of concern for task force member Patricia Flaherty, who questioned whether the scope of the new arena construction would eat up bandwidth that could otherwise be used increasing the quantity of on-campus housing for Northeastern students.

“We don’t want the on-campus beds to get kicked down the path, and I’m very hopeful because you now have two projects that we’re looking at that are potentially sizeable bed projects,” Flaherty said. “Pushing for on-campus housing as a priority is going to be something that I know the neighborhood wants that the city is probably going to support. We never get enough beds to really see the impact in the neighborhood, that’s the housing stabilization where we’re giving people the opportunity to purchase in our neighborhood.”

Over the 10-year period of the last IMP, from 2013 to 2023, Northeastern saw an enrollment increase of 62%, or 16,707 students, according to the City of Boston’s 2023 Student Housing Trends report. Northeastern added about 3,459 student beds over the same time period.

In response to Flaherty, Northeastern’s director of campus planning, Cory Berg, acknowledged that while the arena is the IMP’s first project, other near-term priorities for the 10-year plan included other improvements to the east end and the construction of a new residential building at the now vacant parcel at 17-23 Forsyth Street that would add 1,000 beds.