Harvard University has confirmed it is halting construction of its major new science centre in the Boston neighbourhood of Allston due to fallout from the financial crisis.

In a letter dated yesterday university president Drew Faust confirmed, “As has been anticipated, the University will pause construction upon completion of the current phase, in the early spring of 2010.”

The ‘current phase’ involved the construction of foundations for what was to be the Allston Science Complex, with 8,000 tons of steel and a concrete deck already in place. Now Harvard is seeking advice on whether it might be able to change the current design or bring in commercial or academic partners to share the cost.

Executive vice-president Katherine Lapp stated that space would be created in Boston and Cambridge to accommodate researchers who were going to be placed in the Allston centre, “at least for the short term”. Faust insisted the “pause” in development would not hinder Harvard’s progress in the life sciences.

The president also appears anxious to placate residents of Allston.

“The altered financial landscape of the University, and of the wider world, necessitates a shift away from rapid development in Allston, and thus requires a simultaneous commitment to a program of active stewardship of Harvard properties,” she wrote in her letter. “We take our relationships with our host communities very seriously, and while I am proud of the University’s ongoing efforts aimed at leasing vacant properties and improving community vitality in Allston, we must do more.”

However at least one local resident is not happy. Harry Mattison appears in articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and the Boston Herald.

He says the neighbourhood is “going downward” and “feels abandoned and ignored” by the university.