Category Archives: Country Club

Designs for Lyme Road apartments revealed

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After a pause in the face of town and gown opposition, the project to design and construct an off-campus undergraduate apartment complex at the intersection of Reservoir Road and Lyme Road is well underway. The college moved the building site from the east side of Lyme Road to the west side and unveiled a complete-looking design by Ayers Saint Gross (project page).

(Calling this site a part of “the North End” is not accurate. The north end of the campus ends at the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center. This site is practically in Lyme Township.)

The Valley News quotes alumnus and retired track and field coach Barry Harwick as he hits the nail on the head:

Although Harwick contends there are other approaches to addressing the student housing shortage, some of them at sites in town the college has identified in the past, he believes Dartmouth’s plan is being driven by expedience over other considerations.

“I think that the reason they’re building this out there is that they want a flat piece of land that they already own that can be built on quickly,” he said.

John Lippman, “Dartmouth College tweaks agenda for Lyme Road housing meetings,” Valley News (23 July 2022).

Other articles on the project include: John Lippman, “Dartmouth calls time out on plan to build dorm complex in field along Lyme Road,” Valley News (22 February 2022); John Lippman, “Dartmouth College revises housing plan with student apartments crossing Lyme Road,” Valley News (23 June 2022); “Plan for Student Housing Moved to West Side of Lyme Road,” Dartmouth News (23 June 2022); “Community Session on North End Housing Draws 150 People,” Dartmouth News (12 July 2022); “Community Meeting Discusses Green Space in North End,” Dartmouth News (27 July 2022); “Third North End Meeting Focuses on Transportation,” Dartmouth News (2 August 2022); “North End Meeting: Building the Student Experience,” Dartmouth News (9 August 2022); “North End Meeting Discusses Design and Performance,” Dartmouth News (16 August 2022).

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Update 10.24.2022: The latest news was left off the post. The apartment project will go before the Hanover Planning Board on November 1 (“North End Housing Project Goes to Hanover Planning Board,” Dartmouth News (19 October 2022)).

Reservoir Road commuter apartment complex going ahead

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The board has voted to go ahead with the ill-sited commuter apartment complex on Reservoir Road (article from Dartmouth). The proposal was paused after faculty objected (Dartmouth, Valley News, The Dartmouth) but those objections seem to have been insufficient to put the project in the bad-ideas bin with the College Park dormitory proposal.

Campus Services has a good explanation of the project (pdf), and the planners have done a thorough job of explaining to neighbors what their goals are (presentation video). There is an emphasis on smart growth and so on — which is exactly right for the neighborhood. That area does need a building at the corner of Lyme and Reservoir Roads. But the idea of busing undergrads out there — of filling the apartments exclusively with people who should be living with their peers on the walkable campus that is centered more than a mile to the southwest — is completely contrary to the new-urbanist principles behind the village centers idea. Bizarre.

And this means that the entire College Park dormitory siting process was for naught. The result of that process was the rejection of College Park in favor of a great site near the heart of the campus, on Crosby Street. That is where this new student housing was meant to be built, and where it should be built.

What happened to Sasaki’s Crosby St. dorm?

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Sunday’s post asked what happened to the “swing space” dorm proposed for Crosby Street. Professor Nyhan, quoted in an article in The Dartmouth,1Parker O’Hara, “New undergraduate housing on Lyme Road to break ground by end of year,” The Dartmouth (25 Jan. 2022), available at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/01/new-undergraduate-housing-on-lyme-road-to-break-ground-by-end-of-year. pointed out the availability of the Crosby Street site. Now Ben Korkowski of The D has an explanation, quoting V.P. for institutional projects Josh Keniston:

“It is a tough site to build on: There is a steam line that runs through it, the Onion and tennis courts are there and it is a relatively tight space,” Keniston explained.2Ben Korkowski, “New residence hall set to replace the Onion placed on indefinite suspension,” The Dartmouth (27 Jan. 2022), available at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/01/new-residence-hall-set-to-replace-the-onion-placed-on-indefinite-suspension.

The housing crunch of the moment does seem to have a lot to do with the long-term decision to throw up a hasty plastic dorm off campus.

Let’s say the Crosby Street swing space takes two years longer to build than the school-bus dorm on Garipay Fields will take. Wouldn’t it be better to put up some Tree Houses in Maynard Yard and on the Gilman site for a few years while building on Crosby Street and then end up with a real, permanent brick dormitory at the center of campus?

 

References
↑1 Parker O’Hara, “New undergraduate housing on Lyme Road to break ground by end of year,” The Dartmouth (25 Jan. 2022), available at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/01/new-undergraduate-housing-on-lyme-road-to-break-ground-by-end-of-year.
↑2 Ben Korkowski, “New residence hall set to replace the Onion placed on indefinite suspension,” The Dartmouth (27 Jan. 2022), available at https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/01/new-residence-hall-set-to-replace-the-onion-placed-on-indefinite-suspension.

College planning dorms in the back of beyond

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The planning effort for the Lyme Road South precinct now has its own project page and has a serious team behind it:

Project Manager: Joanna Whitcomb
Planner/Architect: Beyer Blinder Belle
Landscape Architect: Michael Van Volkenburgh Associates
Environmental Design Consultant: Atelier Ten

The planners have sent out a Dear Neighbors newsletter (pdf) letting the neighbors know that a dormitory cluster — a group of “apartment-style” residences for 300 students, presumably seniors — is planned for their area.

Included in the college’s report of last Thursday’s community meeting is a map showing the site of the proposed cluster. The site is south of or upon Garipay Fields, southwest of the Rugby Club and presumably encompassing the driving range of the old HCC Practice Area:


That site is much further away from campus than, say, the Dewey Field Parking Lot, itself a barely acceptable site for a remote new dorm.

Google Maps says it takes 20 minutes to walk from Baker Library to the driving range south of Garipay Fields.

The proposed dorms will be used as swing space during a period of at least 10 years as existing dormitories on campus are renovated. After those renovations are complete, one hopes that the college will turn over the apartments to graduate students rather than expanding undergraduate enrollment to fit the available housing. Perhaps that ability (and commitment?) to abandon the dorm after its use by undergrads is the only thing that could make the plan acceptable.

Taking a piecemeal approach to the expansion of existing dorms (mentioned in this post) would certainly be better for the campus than erecting a distant, school-bus dependent cluster on Lyme Road. Even building a single 300-bed swing space cluster at the corner of Maynard and Rope Ferry would seem far superior to the Lyme Road idea. Once the 10-year renovation project is completed, that swing space can become a combination of offices and graduate student housing — just as Chase and Woodbury Halls at Tuck and 37 Dewey Field Road were all converted from housing to offices. (And whatever happened to the “swing space” dorm proposed for Crosby Street? Wouldn’t it obviate the need for the Lyme Road project?)

It seems that folks are in a hurry, and a grassy, vacant site allows for hastier construction.

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Update 01.24.2022: The Valley News has an article on neighborhood opposition.

Dorms on Lyme Road?

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Dartmouth News and the Valley News report on the college’s interest in developing the land north of the Life Sciences Building, including parts of the golf course. The possibility of such development was spelled out in the master plan some time ago, but the noteworthy new detail is that the college is considering building dormitories on some part of the site.

First reaction to the dorm idea: This is an unserious proposal, a negotiating tactic, like the College Park dorm idea. It is a silly idea. The ten-minute walking radius from Baker is not just a guideline, it is a crucial rule of campus composition. Plans for transit do not eliminate the ten-minute walking radius, and it just does not seem appropriate to have students riding the school bus to class in a place as small as Hanover.

After a closer look: From Baker Library to the Dewey Field parking lot site might be a half-mile and take nine minutes to reach on foot, making it technically acceptable. It is about as far away as the River Cluster was — not an admirable standard, but a Dartmouth precedent. One hopes that the Dewey Field site is the only one they are talking about for a dorm, because any site beyond it would be unacceptable.

(What about the college-related buildings that are not part of the everyday life of students or faculty? Storage libraries and development offices and various back-office functions would be perfect for the golf course sites. They would be much better sited here than in the sprawl of Centerra or in towns around the region.)

If not on Lyme Road, where could the increasing number of students be housed? (The proposed Crosby Street dorm will be ignored, because it will be used as swing space to house students from existing clusters as they are renovated.) Here are some available sites, some of them identified in the current master plan:

  • A second Mass Row
  • The Gilman site (offered in the College Park dorm siting discussion)
  • The Maynard and Rope Ferry corner (or any site on any side of Maynard Yard)

Might it be the case that the number of additional students to be housed, say 350 students, would be too large to fit on one of those sites? Yes. That is a good thing, both for Hanover’s urbanism and for the students who end up living in the new hall. Instead of building a giant barracks, the school should add additional beds to the existing campus at a combination of smaller sites within the ten-minute walking radius, including:

  • Additions to and eventual replacement of the Choates
  • An addition to Wheeler Hall
  • A dormitory range on the outer edge of College Park between RipWoodSmith and Andres
  • A dormitory range west or north of McLane Hall

Obviously these new additions will have to join existing house communities; there is nothing wrong with that. Creating a subtle and sensitive series of additions to historic buildings will be more expensive than dropping a single giant complex on a distant lot, but it will be worth it. It seems that the desire to add beds to the campus exclusively in the form of one entirely new house community at a time is driving the push to build dorms outside of town, and it is harmful.

More observations about the final strategic master plan

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The college released the final (November 2020) version of the master plan (pdf) in July of 2021 (Anna Merriman, “Dartmouth master plan calls for growth along Lyme Road,” Valley News (2 July 2021)). The plan is not getting enough press or enough praise, so here are some observations:

  • As noted earlier, the possibilities for growth in the central campus look great (page 38).

  • The north end opportunity sites are all super. Old Hospital Quad will be an incredible space 130 years in the making (pages 42-43). Fairchild Tower always did seem more than necessary for its purpose; it is really a signpost building (pages 44-45).

  • Putting student housing in Remsen-Vail might be touchy. If you wanted to reuse a dull Sixties building as housing, you should have done it with the DHMC tower. Remsen-Vail could be appropriately used for academic purposes, however (page 44).

  • Lyme Road development is inevitable, but it is not clear how realistic it is to show such development without parking lots (pages 46-47).

  • When it comes to the West End, the novelty in this plan is the meander of the Cemetery Bridge (Thayer Viaduct). It is more like a boardwalk on a nature trail and does not appear to be a suspension bridge at all — but won’t it be extremely difficult to put bridge footings in a cemetery? (Pages 48-49).

  • More on the West End: Again, the original Tuck School building here could make an amazing undergraduate dormitory, but one would hate to see Tuck School vanish into the suburbs (pages 48-49).

  • South End and Downtown: The athletics promenade between Lebanon St. and Thompson Arena is excellent and long overdue. It could be a fine linear work of landscape architecture. Annexing Davis Varsity House as a part of the “house community” for the Crosby Street swing space dorm could be a superb move. The reasoning behind the focus on wellness for an expanded McKenzie is not clear — couldn’t it be used for anything, including arts uses? — but it makes no difference as long as the building is saved. McKenzie might present a real opportunity to create a new building within the historic brick walls (pages 52-53).

  • Quibbles are minor and basically the same as before: Thayer School didn’t go from the old Experiment Station directly to the West End in 1939, it spent several years in Bissell Gymnasium (page 9); the reference to “Dart Hall” is kind of irritating (page 38); and it’s “Bema” not BEMA (page 41).

  • The map on pages 28 and 29 showing named landscape opportunities is an important document. Some offhand proposals for these spaces:

    Name in Plan Proposed Replacement
    Riverfront Park Leydard Park
    West End Green A tough one; this was the Wigwam Circle postwar housing area.
    Tuck Green at the end of Tuck Mall Tuck Circle
    Dart Row Commons Fayer Green? “Commons” is not really appropriate for an open space.
    Maynard Yard Old Hospital Yard. This really is a better name.
    Life Sciences Lawn Another tough one; there is very little historic context here.
    North End Green in a strip of Dewey Field Dewey Field. Another one that really is a better name.
    Vox Lane NHCAMA; New Hampshire something; or State College something? “Vox Lane” has always been arbitrary, which is disappointing in this richly historic precinct.
    Park Street Gateway Piazza Nervi. This is tougher to justify now that grass rather than hardscape is proposed for this space.

Hilton Field as a sculpture park

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Here is a thought: What if, instead of calling for an arboretum on the former golf course, the master plan (see the post here) proposed to construct a large sculpture park? A sculpture park on Hilton Field, the part of the golf course that lies north of Occom Pond, would have little more impact on the neighbors than would an arboretum. It would be managed by the Hood Museum as a site for major new works, and it could provide a home for any refugee works that the college thought appropriate to move from the campus, such as Thel (see the article here; the master plan at least hints at the possible removal of Thel).

Speaking of Thel, here is William Blake’s new gravestone in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground in London. It was created by the Blake Society under the leadership of Philip Pullman, of His Dark Materials fame.

Photo of grave of William Blake in London by Scott Meacham

The Anonymous Hall bridge (see photos at the Windover Construction site) deserves praise for adding to the walkability of the northern part of the campus. It seems like the sort of amenity that could easily be cut from a construction budget.

Let’s hope the proposed cemetery bridge (see the final image at the BBB master plan project page for a conceptual view) eventually is built, and when it does cross the burial ground, let’s hope it receives an appropriate amount of design attention. What a fantastic project this could be, and what a great opportunity for an architectural commentary on the influence of ancient Egypt on both bridges and funerary architecture. See for example the post here for a proposal to erect an ominous cemetery gate at each end of the bridge.

Egyptian Revival architecture makes for a good folly; authors Gwyn Headley and Wim Meulenkamp have a new book out called The English Folly: The Edifice Complex. Their earlier book, Follies: A Guide to Rogue Architecture in England, Scotland and Wales, features a photo of the Dunmore Pineapple in Scotland (Wikipedia) on its cover. Yes, that Dunmore: the building’s patron, John Murray, was the Governor of Virginia at the beginning of the Revolution. On December 6, 1775, Murray wrote to (that) Lord Dartmouth to say that “I immediately ordered a Fort to be erected” at Great Bridge, on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp (pdf, 1311). The utilitarian and hastily-built timber stockade called Fort Murray was pretty much the opposite of a folly; it withstood a rebel siege but no longer exists.

The master plan: initial impressions

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See the latest version of Planning for Possibilities on the Presentations and Outcomes page. So far, the October 2020 draft plan and a slide deck have been posted.

The new master plan is very impressive.

The scope of the plan is impressive. It is the first master plan for the college to at least account for all college properties (the map on page 5 is zoomed out so far that it shows part of Canada) and the first plan to frame the campus in a regional context. Especially where transit is concerned, the Organic Farm and DHMC really do need to appear on the same map.

The document is more readable and less technical than its predecessors. Its creators made the interesting decision to use oblique aerial views exclusively — meaning that none of the proposals for development appear as flat “plans.”

The potential projects on campus look excellent. Placing a building on the lawn of Shabazz Hall makes so much sense. The natural site for a new physical sciences building beyond Burke of course requires yet another demolition of Dragon. The proposals for Bartlett and Wheeler additions are fantastic, with the latter being particularly bold. The natural row behind Mass Row could incorporate an abutment of, or at least an entry plaza for, the Cemetery Bridge at its south end. The Bema pavilion makes sense (maybe the place will see more use if it has a proper covered stage?), though erecting a frame building would be unusual in that space.

One might wish the planners had considered building on the vacant lots in front of Sanborn and south of Blunt as well. And why not show a building site on Berry Row between Kemeny and Moore? It has always been planned that way, even going back to VSBA days after the purchase of the hospital property. Oh well. (The plan also does not clearly note the anticipated Ledyard Canoe Club replacement, but that is not important.)

Here’s hoping that the college preserves the old frame buildings that are now standing on the various development sites. There are two buildings on the site behind Mass Row, two on the Choate Road corner, two in front of Thompson, and two on College Street next to Sudikoff. There is also a certain amount of appeal to the idea of saving Sudikoff itself, the village-like assemblage of brick house-forms, and of saving Raven, but neither building is of a scale to stand up to Moore Hall next door. Clearing the Sudikoff corner is the breaking of eggs to make an omelet in this plan.

The big question: Hilton Field (the western portion of the golf course)

The plan proposes that the oldest portion of the shuttered golf course be turned into an arboretum. This is a clever choice, especially given the neighborhood and its sensitivities. An arboretum really is typologically and functionally similar to a golf course or, for that matter, a city park or a cemetery. In the end, this minor change in use might amount to nothing more than ceding the land to nature as at the adjacent (and intermingled!) Pine Park. And yet an arboretum will not take Hilton Field off the table for some distant future development if it is needed. Still, the college would probably be remiss not to put a half-dozen houses for sale to faculty along Hilton Field Road at the same time it lays out the arboretum. What an opportunity!

East and North of the Green

The Thel sculpture is not mentioned, but it might be endangered:

Fairchild Field
A new shared surface for cars, pedestrians, and bikes, in lieu of a vehicular access road, creates better pedestrian connections between the Physical Sciences Complex and the Historic Core.

Anything that replaces the access road would be an improvement.

The plan devotes a great deal of attention to Fairchild Tower. It proposes a new interior stair and a bridge (to Wilder, presumably). Fairchild has always seemed a chilly, hollow signpost, but the illustrations in the plan remind us of how stylish it is.

Moving south across Wheelock Street, the big Vox Lane redevelopment image shows McKenzie and the Store House as not only preserved but expanded vertically into a “wellness” building — fantastic. That will be one of the most architecturally interesting buildings on campus. (This proposal was not included in an August presentation image and thus seems to be a recent inspiration.)

South of the Store House is shown a parking garage on the FO&M corner. Fine, but one hopes that it will have retail uses on the ground level. It could make for a neat visitor entry to campus: you drive to town, park in the garage, follow the signs to the back door of Wilson Hall — the new admissions office, in this plan — and when you embark on your campus tour and pass through Wilson’s great arch you see the Green laid out before you.

It is good to see the athletics promenade alongside Leverone (page 52). And Piazza Nervi is on the map, described this way:

Park St Gateway
A gracious gateway to athletics and the campus visually connects the Leverone Fieldhouse and Thompson Arena, both historic modernist structures designed by Pier Luigi Nervi.

That “gateway” project would move the two houses currently blocking the view of Thompson Arena and, interestingly, would add a roadway in front of Thompson. Clever: lining a lawn with streets sets it off as a public space, a public green.

North Campus

The architects’ image of a Maynard Street Green on page 45 looks like a Currier and Ives print.

The plan mentions the possibility of moving all existing uses out of the Rope Ferry Road buildings and turning the buildings into graduate dorms. Interesting! But wait, do they mean vacating Dick’s House too? They do, apparently — which would be too bad. Would there be any infirmary on campus, or have student health services become a collection of vending machines? Presumably the infirmary would go to the “wellness” building at McKenzie. If that is what it takes to save McKenzie, then so be it.

And beyond: Land banks on Lyme Road

The new buildings north of the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center are a great start, and there could be many more here. Dewey Lot has so much space, as stated in the report, and so much potential. The depression here creates a fantastic opportunity for an extensive below-grade parking deck. As stated on this site in the past, however, the functions placed here should not be college-related. This is no more a part of the campus than is the CVS (Grand Union) building, and college ownership of this site does not change that fact.

Moving up along Lyme Road outside of town: The two alternative land bank locations labeled “Site 1” will inevitably be suburban and oriented to Lyme Road, notwithstanding the plan’s idealism about self-driving cars. They really will have parking lots, because they will become office parks and convenience stores. As far as the choice between near and far, the farther site, next to the fire station, seems preferable. There is less chance that it will contain anything that undergraduates would need to visit.

More on the two locations of Geisel, the Grand Limited-Access Road, and the rest of the plan in a future post.

The College Street sidewalk and other topics

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  • The college is replacing some of the glass curtain walls on the Black Family Visual Arts Center, including the large etched glass window that clad the upper levels of the building over the west (campus) entrance (former link). The replacement glass here and over the south entrance will be less distracting and provide better management of daylight. The etched design over the west entrance, however lovely up close, did always look from a distance like creeping frost or condensation inside a multipane window whose seal had failed.

  • Very interesting: the college is putting a lot of effort into installing a sidewalk along College Street north of the site of the old DG House (see North College Street Sidewalk weekly update). Sidewalks are good, and this one must have been deemed necessary, but there was something romantic about the way College Park spilled wildly toward the shoulder of the road, untamed. Just look at this barely-trammeled wilderness, as seen in Google Street View during July 2019:

    At any rate, the project involves what appears to be a hand-laid stone retaining wall intended as a counterpart to the existing wall to the south. (Does that existing wall incorporate foundation stones from the Victorian DG House?)

  • Dartmouth News has a video on the wooden sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard called Wide Babelki Bowl that now stands northwest of Rollins Chapel. (It is not really a southern counterpart to Thel; that honor was held by Telemark Shortline, which has been removed.) As Jessica Hong notes in the video, the sculpture has a definite kinship with the cyclopean masonry of Rollins; it is also reminiscent of the multi-stone sculptures of Angkor Wat.

  • The college is going ahead with the DOC House renovation (project page) with funding from the Class of 1969. Compare the project page image with the image at The Call to Lead to see the exterior changes on the Occom Pond facade.

  • It is not clear if there is an earlier public mention than this April 20 article, but the trim Sports Pavilion by Burnham Field that was built in 2007 and expanded a decade later has finally been given a name: Reilly Pavilion.

  • Housing developer Michaels Student Living will build an $84 million graduate student housing complex on Mt. Support Road, near the hospital, in coordination with the college (see renderings in Dartmouth News release, site plan in The Dartmouth). The designer is JSA Design of Portsmouth (Boston Real Estate Times).

  • The Valley News reports that plans are afoot to save the Hanover Country Club as a nine-hole course. The northern two-thirds of the course, comprising holes seven through 15, would be used in the new course; the southern portion of the course, lying south of the bulk of Pine Park and including the clubhouse area and the bridge over Girl Brook, would be made available for possible college expansion.

  • The Valley News has a story on a new cold chamber to be built at CRREL.

  • The steel frame of the Irving Institute has been topped off (Dartmouth News).

  • Most construction projects, including the construction of a large dormitory at the corner of Crosby and Wheelock Streets, are on hold, reported The Dartmouth in June.

  • Vermonter Putnam Blodgett ’53 died on March 20 (Valley News). He led the Moosilauke advisory committee, and his woods were the source of the unique forked white pine called Slingshot that supports the second-level bridge as well as the roof of the new Ravine Lodge (see photos in Jim Collins, Welcome to the Woods, DAM (Jan-Feb 2018)). I recall him at the 1995 Senior Symposium talking about the 1949 Tug of War: apparently the regular tug of war between the freshmen and the seniors had come to be seen as too large and dangerous, so the college placed a huge log between the opposing teams and attached multiple ropes to each side. Unfortunately, one of the ropes came loose and the log went flying in the opposite direction, toward the side with more pulling force. He said it was a miracle that no one was badly injured.

  • A ring bearing the letter “Z” featured prominently in a photo in the July 24 Washington Post story on the Pebble Mine project in Alaska. The photograph, by Alex Milan Tracy, showed the right hand of then-CEO Tom Collier, a U.Va. graduate. It’s a safe bet that the ring indicates membership in the Z Society (Wikipedia).

The end of the Hanover Country Club

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Along with ending five varsity sports, the college is closing the Hanover Country Club after nearly 125 years (see the announcement, which features another great Burakian aerial; see also the more detailed Hanlon message and the FAQ).

The golf course has been thought of as a land bank, a reserve for future development, for decades. A thorough college planning process can be expected before anything is built on the golf course.

Here are some suggestions for the plan:

  1. The historic clubhouse, a 19th-century barn that was extensively remodeled by Professor Homer Eaton Keyes in 1916 and 1917 (a post here), should be preserved, ideally on its current site. It could be expanded and turned into a dwelling.

    Hanover Country Club House, Dartmouth College
  2. If the golf course is going to be developed, it should be developed thoroughly. Piecemeal scatterings of parking lots and isolated buildings will only draw suburban sprawl closer to Hanover (a concern expressed in a 2008 post here). The college should plan for an all-encompassing, long-term project that reserves important natural areas, establishes a street grid, and envisions buildings surrounding walkable public spaces.
  3. More to the point, the development should be urban, not campus-like. The golf course lies outside the 10-minute walking radius of the college, and none of the buildings built there should contain spaces for instruction or student dining or living. These should be mixed-use commercial buildings like the ones found in Hanover’s first downtown, South Main Street. That is the idea presented in a 2012 post here that featured this image:

    north block proposal
  4. One exception to the no-campus guideline might be made for a new business school campus. Professional schools are located at the edges of the college, and the Tuck School has looked in the past at new sites along Lyme Road — which is too far away. A new Tuck campus beginning behind the Life Sciences Center and extending up into the golf course could be impressive. Thayer School might be happy to take over the old Tuck buildings.
  5. While commercial buildings extend northward along Lyme Road, what kind of construction should the college promote on old Hilton Field, the area beyond the DOC House and the Clubhouse? To bring some income, provide needed housing for academic families, and appease the existing neighbors, the college might want to consider building houses here in the character of the historic neighborhood.

College floats three sites for the new heating plant

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First, the most important news: The college “will be decommissioning the current power plant, removing the stack and repurposing the building” (Planning Board Meeting Minutes 5 February 2019 pdf). That is reassuring. Naturally one would love to see the landmark 1958 stack retained as well and repurposed as a memorial column or a pedestal for public art, but we will take what we can get.

At a public meeting last month, the college revealed the three places that are in the running to become the site of the replacement heating plant (Valley News 22 May, Dartmouth News, The Dartmouth). The sites are:

1. The hill behind the Dewey parking lot, east of Rope Ferry Road and Occom Pond. This would not be the first power plant in the neighborhood, of course: the MHMH plant had a tall smokestack and stood in the parking lot behind 5 Rope Ferry Road (roughly behind the red BMW in this photo from Google Street View):

2. A site along Lyme Road by the Hanover Country Club’s maintenance facility garage at the south end of the golf course. This is the best we can do on Street View:

3. The third location is the former home of Trumbull-Nelson Construction Co., next to the Hanover Public Works Department, on Route 120.

The third option is the most distant and seems to be the only one that would not require trucks full of wood chips to drive through the center of town several times a day. That site would require a lengthy insulated underground pipeline to link up with the existing steam tunnel and pipe network, however. The pipeline can be no more than two miles long if it is to be efficient (Planning Board pdf). According to the map above, the route to the T-N site is about 1.6 miles, following roadways.

Because of its distance from campus and the possibility that it would keep some trucks out of town, the favorite site among the public seems to be the T-N site (Valley News 23 May).

Master planning picks up steam

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The master planning site is now seeking comments.

An article in The Dartmouth on the first master planning town hall meeting has this to say:

  • The Golf Course: “The Hanover Country Club could also be repurposed in the plan, as it is ‘losing a significant amount of money,’ Moore said. He added that the Hanover Country Club will continue to operate as a golf course through 2020. However, its fate after 2020 will be determined by the master plan. Other land that could be repurposed includes Lewiston Lot, an area on the Vermont side of Ledyard Bridge that currently operates as a parking lot.”
  • Rivercrest: “Graduate student housing was also mentioned several times during the town hall. The Rivercrest property, located north of the Hanover Country Club, is one of the areas being considered for future graduate student housing, Moore said.”

An article on the master plan in the Valley News has lots of interesting tidbits:

  • The history of master planning: “The development of a new master plan was started in 2012 but was never completed nor was a draft made available to the public following the departure of then-Dartmouth president Jim Yong Kim.”
  • The possible (palatial?) Country Club: “One possibility for the future of the Hanover Country Club is the addition of a new clubhouse on Lyme Road. Keniston confirmed that a group of Tuck students are currently evaluating the financial viability of such a venue.”
  • Locations for third-party grad student housing: “According to Keniston, $500,000 has been approved for a private developer to build 250 beds either at 401 Mount Support Road or Sachem Village, which already houses graduate students.” See also the later Valley News story on the invitation for proposals.
  • The new heat plant: “As for the future location of a proposed Dartmouth biomass plant, Keniston said the technical analysis is almost complete to announce two to four potential sites. A community forum will be held mid-May to solicit feedback on the locations from local residents.”

Here’s a scoop from a recent piece by D. Maurice Kreis1D. Maurice Kreis, “On the Dartmouth Green, Art and Architecture Make their Stand,” InDepthNH.org (9 February 2019). about the new Hood:

Showing off the expansion and renovation designed by the world-renowned New York architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Stomberg casually mentioned that the Hood opted to stick with its existing location at the center of campus rather than move to a more distant spot that had been offered, which he characterized as being near the Connecticut River.

Instead, Stomberg said, that’s where Dartmouth will put the new central heating plant it recently announced plans to construct so as to stop burning oil and start burning sustainably harvested wood.

That’s interesting. A site by the River? Could it be Rivercrest? Now that we know that grad student housing will be built in Lebanon, could Rivercrest be on the list of sites for the heating plant? Rivercrest is the next development along the River after CRREL:

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References
↑1 D. Maurice Kreis, “On the Dartmouth Green, Art and Architecture Make their Stand,” InDepthNH.org (9 February 2019).

Various construction topics

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  • An Architectural Digest story on the Hood by Elizabeth Fazzare again refers to a gray brick supposedly used in the original building, this time stating that it was used in the iconic trabeated gateway. The gateway was made of concrete, however; Moore originally intended it to be of granite.
  • The Indoor Practice Facility weekly update includes an aerial image showing the building’s footprint.
  • Van Zelm Engineers, a firm that worked on the 1978 Life Sciences Center and has built some very interesting heating plants over the years, are working on the Irving Institute. Their project page shows a basic footprint for the Institute for the first time: it really is a screen building. The college project page now includes renderings of the side facades and a new interior view.
  • A flythrough video of the Thayer/CS building by Wilson Architects suggests that the complex will have quite a retaining wall on the west side; one hopes it’s made into “engineering” or at least faced in granite.
  • The Thayer School Parking Garage project page has some cute computer images of various stages of future excavation. Turner Construction has a camera on MacLean showing the construction site.
  • Campus Services reports on a project to remove diseased trees from Pine Park.
  • High-Profile and North Branch Construction have information on the renovation of Blunt into an academic building.
  • The Dana renovation remains an interesting project. There is a video flythrough at the Leers Weinzapfel Associates site, and it shows a little pedestrian bridge on the west side of the building. A glimpse of the building’s lobby shows the Guarini shield on an office door and a “graduate lounge” occupying a part of the building, possibly a holdover from the similarly-named space called for in the giant unbuilt dining commons that MRY and Bruner/Cott proposed for a site a few yards to the southwest. The glassy Dana frontispiece will be topped with a patio; the penthouse has a flat canopy roof that is covered in solar panels and almost gives the building the air of a pagoda.
  • Some Tuck Drive details from the July 3 minutes of the Planning Board (pdf):

    The road is about half a mile long. He stated they will be working within the existing asphalt and drainage swales in order to maintain the existing stone walls. Lighting along the road will be minimal. Fixtures will be spaced 80-120 feet apart. Better access to the loading dock at Murdough will be provided. From Wheelock Street, Old Tuck Drive will be a two way street and give access to the Ledyard Parking Lot. After the turn off to the parking lot, the drive becomes a one way access. There is a pedestrian crossing point marked by a raised speed table. Guardrails will be installed along Old Tuck Drive. There is a bike lane separated from vehicle traffic by a double yellow line. Close to Tuck Drive there will be sidewalks on both sides of the drive.

    […]

    Mr. Scherding stated the campus was open with busy streets and students were used to crossing streets and sharing roads. He stated the Director of Public Works suggested narrowing the road at pedestrian crossings to make it safer. Mr. Scherding said they talked about having a physical barrier between the vehicles and the bike lanes but currently it is not on the plans. ESMAY asked what the guardrail would look like. Mr. Scherding stated it would look like the existing granite bollards.

  • A report of the September trustees’ meeting describes a renovation project in which “the College intends to improve learning spaces throughout Dartmouth Hall to ensure that the building can meet the needs of faculty and students in the 21st century. As part of the planned construction, the College will restore some of the structure’s historic elements, overhaul the building’s systems, and upgrade its energy efficiency.”
  • Revision Energy has a page on its solar installations at the college. Some of the dormitory installations really do transform the appearance of the buildings.
  • Bruner/Cott has a page on its renovation of Baker Tower. The interior graffiti appear to have been removed.
  • The automated parking system of the UK Architects addition to the rear of the Bridgman Building is drawing some attention (ACPark.com, Parking-Net.com).
  • There is more news on the off-campus (or edge-of-campus?) heating plant project (Dartmouth News, The Dartmouth). Although a nice spot for it would be the Dewey Field parking lot (orange), my money’s on a few Lyme Road sites, shown in red:

Speculative map of potential heating plant sites

New country clubhouse a possibility

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An advisory committee discussed the future of the Golf Course during the spring (Dartmouth News) and in the end it recommended keeping the course open and building a new clubhouse on Lyme Road, an idea that has been around for several years (Valley News, committee page with report).

The new clubhouse would have a much more varied program than the old one. From the report:

We have looked at preliminary architectural plans for that space that include four classrooms potentially for OSHER, the usual golf-related amenities, a restaurant for golfers, Pine Park users and faculty, staff, and students on the north end of campus, as well as a large multi-purpose space that could be used for weddings, receptions, and College events.

(“Osher” is the former ILEAD.)

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Randall Mudge designed a companion to the Rugby Clubhouse on the other side of Lyme Road?

Whether to build on the Golf Course

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The college is looking at a “public-private partnership” — really just a private-private partnership, a form of outsourcing — to build a new biomass heating plant somewhere other than in downtown Hanover (Valley News). The college has also created a committee to study the future of the golf course (Valley News, Dartmouth News). The two efforts are directly related, as pages 12 and 14 of the 2002 college master plan (pdf) predicted:

  • “[T]he Golf Course is our land bank for beyond ten years[.]”

  • “[E]xpansion will likely be North of Dewey Field, into the Golf Course.”

  • “Golf course expansion has been contemplated for decades, and in the decades ahead will likely become a reality.”

The college could close the Country Club

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The college is considering whether to shutter its historic Hanover Country Club.

Even if the college were to close the club, of course, it would never sell off the entire golf course. The golf course has been officially viewed as a “land bank” for future institutional development for at least 15 years (see the 2002 master plan pdf).

This website has proposed that if the south end of the golf course is to be developed, it should be built up with some density using “town” forms rather than as an extension of the grassy campus, irrespective of ownership (see posts of 2008 and 2012).

Whatever form it takes, the development of the south end of the golf course should not require the closure of the Country Club. The Club itself has planned since at least 2000 to move its clubhouse to Lyme Road, and one could imagine new holes being added to the east of the course, near the Rugby Clubhouse, or to the north, in the Fletcher Circle neighborhood, where residents have had concerns about groundwater contamination migrating from CRREL. If the college really needs the land near Dewey Field for more buildings, it should simply shift the golf course instead of destroying it.

Image of new Ledyard; selecting Ravine Lodge timbers

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Co-Op Food Store in Centerra

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11.28.2016 update: DEN project page link added.

Alas, Rivercrest

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Wolff Lyons’ expansive traditionalist neighborhood plan (a post here) for the redevelopment of Rivercrest, on hold for several years, will not be built when the land is finally developed:

Tim McNamara from the Dartmouth College Real Estate Office explained that the College was instrumental in the zoning change creating the GR-4 district. A Master Plan for a suburban village had been created for Rivercrest with 300 mixed type housing units. The project has been on hold due to the recession and wanting to be patient about the transport of TCE from CRREL.

The College will soon determine what the housing demand is considering faculty and graduate students. The Rivercrest project will be designed based on this demand. The current Master Plan is unlikely to be built. When the College finally initiates Rivercrest, it is unlikely to be built out quickly. Tim envisions many smaller phases. If it were put in the queue today for planning, construction would occur in 3- 5 years. The actual start depends on demand at Dartmouth, the availability of capital and the TCE situation.1Planning Board, minutes of meeting (4 June 2014), pdf, 5.

We also learn that “Sachem will be built out first as that housing is needed for graduate students. There are no plans for the golf course.”

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References
↑1 Planning Board, minutes of meeting (4 June 2014), pdf, 5.