After more than 30 years at Suffolk University, John Nucci is stepping down from his role as senior vice president of external affairs. For colleagues, neighbors and city leaders, his retirement marks the close of a career defined by bridge building between the university and the Boston community.

Nucci’s legacy is one that has overseen the growth of Suffolk from a commuter university based in Beacon Hill to a citywide university with growing on-campus residency and its first permanent athletic facilities.

A former Boston City Councilor and School Committee President, Nucci said his political roots shaped the way he approached the public affairs role at his alma mater. He started at Suffolk as an adjunct instructor in 2002 and has been a vice president since 2006.

“As we moved through our expansion program over the years, I always lived by the maxim that you don’t want to have the meeting where you’re asking someone to support something be the first meeting with that individual,” Nucci said in an interview.

“I can recall going door to door, almost like a political campaign, to try and get support for [a dorm on Beacon Hill]. By listening to people, finding out what's important to them, the relationship with the Beacon Hill community and the downtown community has been completely turned on its head from when I arrived at the university. You gotta spend the shoe leather.”

By knocking on doors, Nucci found a compromise. The new dorm wouldn’t be the right fit for Beacon Hill, but the site ended up perfect for the current academic and science building, and Nucci was instead able to locate the residency sites the university needed at the Modern Theater and 10 West Street. Nucci’s former colleague, George Comeau, who is now a leader at the Downtown Boston Alliance, said Nucci was instrumental not just in getting the residencies built or renovated, but doing so in a way that worked for everyone.

“The work that he did in East Boston is really amazing, because Boston is a city of neighborhoods, and John is from that neighborhood. I think he was always asking, ‘How can I help the institution, and then how can I help my own neighborhood?” Comeau said.

The campus now includes five residence halls, with a sixth planned to open next fall at 101 Tremont St., and a seventh being planned for the near future.

Rishi Shukla, co-founder of the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association, said, “The conversion that’s going on over on Tremont is incredibly important to the neighborhood and they’ve been really generous in terms of mitigating impacts of some of these projects.”

More than the buildings he oversaw, colleagues say it was the relationships Nucci built that defined his tenure. Shukla recalled Nucci’s early support even when the organization had minimal capital or leverage.

“He was the first to offer us space, first to give us the resources that we needed. We're not incorporated. We're just a bunch of volunteers, so we rely on the goodwill of our neighborhood partner institutions,” Shukla said. “They don't make them like John anymore. He’s an old-fashioned Doer of things and a great relationship guy.”

Both Comeau and Shukla said that Nucci’s retirement would be deeply felt after decades of working closely together, but they remain confident that Nucci will stay a phone call away and that he’s left his team in good hands.

For his part, Nucci is looking forward to slowing down, but when you live the hectic life of a public servant for as long as he has, he’s still not sure what retirement looks like.

“My entire career has been on about two or three blocks in the downtown area. It's been part of my life for a long, long time,” Nucci said. “I always hoped that when I did retire, I'd be able to turn around and see footprints, tangible examples of what I had accomplished. I can say comfortably that I can do that right now with Suffolk University.”