Visiting the BU Economics Department

We are looking forward to your upcoming visit!

In terms of the mechanics of visiting, there is an old joke about universities that is partly applicable to BU: the students only care about sex, the alumni only care about football and the faculty only care about parking.  While BU no longer has a football team, it is certainly true that parking is tricky and this especially true for visitors.

The economics department is located at 270 Bay State Road on the third, fourth and fifth floors of the School of Social Work. This is the "U-shaped" building on the map below (#23).  Visitors will likely be arriving either from Storrow Drive or Commonwealth Avenue.

From Storrow drive, visitors should take the "Kenmore Square exit", which turns into "Charlesgate West." They can then get directly onto Bay State Road (the right turn at the initial intersection allows one to get on either Beacon or Bay State, so it is important to stay to the driver's right). 

From Commonwealth Ave, visitors should turn at Sherborn street to get to Bay State Road (many of the other streets in this area are one way in the wrong direction): in fact, if one is proceeding toward the Boston downtown, it is necessary to go past Sherborn and make the first available u-turn since Sherborn can only be accessed in the outbound direction. If a visitor is coming from Memorial Drive, across the BU bridge, then one cannot turn left on Commonwealth: get on to Mountfort and then follow the "loop" around to Commonwealth.

There are two main parking lots that the Economics Department uses, which are marked on the map below with a "P". The first is the CAS lot right next to building 23: a visitor should go to this lot, where there is a parking attendant in a small building at the entrance.  The attendant have an envelope marked with your name that contains a parking tag. If there is no available spot in the CAS lot, then a short trip to the much larger Warren Towers lot is necessary.  Exiting the lot onto Bay State road and going back past the attendant, the visitor should take a right turn on Granby Street and a left on Commonwealth Avenue (this involves crossing the tracks for the "T").  From Commonwealth, the visitor should take a quick right on Hinsdale street and an immediate right into the parking lot door in the building: there are three floors of parking. It is a short walk to the Economics department.