HANOVER — Dartmouth officials are eyeing land along Lyme Road that housed the Hanover Country Club for potential expansion that may involve college housing developments, administrative buildings and park-like space, according to a newly released master plan for the college.
The plan, which has been in the works for two years and has been approved by college trustees, was published on the Dartmouth website Thursday. It outlines the college-owned properties that Dartmouth is considering developing or ones it aims to revamp for open space use in the next 30 years. Under the plan, Dartmouth could establish over 700 new housing units in the region, and over 680 new units within walking distance of campus.
Vice president of campus services Josh Keniston said the strategic plan is meant to be a “broad framework” for what Dartmouth officials hope to accomplish over the next couple of decades. In the coming year, officials will focus on developing a “near-term plan” to identify the first few projects.
“The goal with the strategic plan is to provide framework and options for when new ideas come to the table,” Keniston said. “We have a baseline.”
A core element of the plan is the development of land along a stretch of Lyme Road, aka Route 10, running from the north end of campus and the Dewey Field parking lot to the former country club and college-owned Rivercrest parcel.
“Part of what we want to do is be really thoughtful about how we add new housing,” said Keniston. He said the demand for student and faculty housing in the Upper Valley existed before the pandemic, but the outbreak of COVID-19 exacerbated the issue.
One area, in particular, the college is hoping to develop is part of the country club, which was used as an 18-hole golf course for 121 years, until the college closed it during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite the need for housing, Keniston said the college doesn’t plan to build on the entire site, but rather to focus developments on the space adjacent to Lyme Road.
The long-term strategic plan suggests building academic and administrative buildings and graduate or professional student housing along Lyme Road and turning the area surrounding the proposed developments into green, park-like space or recreational land. The recreational use could include cross-country ski trails or another 18- or nine-hole golf course.
“It’s a large space and not all the space is prime for development,” Keniston said. “We want to maintain green open space. … We want to have graceful connections to Pine Park.”
Near Pine Park and north of Occom Pond, the plan suggests turning the remainder of the former golf course into an arboretum with “opportunities for recreation, research, and applied learning,” according to the plan.
Dartmouth economics lecturer Charles Wheelan, who chaired a committee researching the future of the country club in 2018, said Friday he supports the college’s general strategic plan but that he wishes officials hadn’t closed the course. Since the golf course closed last year, much of the land has grown over and is now used primarily by walkers and runners.
“If they want a nine-hole golf course they shouldn’t have let the one that was there go to seed,” Wheelan said Friday, pointing specifically to suggestions that the area could be reincorporated as a recreational space. He added that he would have liked to see it remain a golf course in the years leading up to any housing developments.
“I think an opportunity was missed because nothing can be built on this site for quite some time,” Wheelan said.
Along with developing the former golf course space, the strategic plan suggests turning the Dewey Field lot into a mixed-use development with below-grade parking and redeveloping Rivercrest, which had held 30 aging duplex housing units that were razed several years ago, into graduate and faculty or staff housing. The site is on Route 10 near the Kendal at Hanover retirement community.
Officials also hope to improve transportation along the Lyme Road corridor with better transit services and bike lanes for easier access to the Dartmouth Organic Farm, just north of the Rinker-Steele Natural Area.
The plan identifies other areas around the campus for development as well, like portions of land to the north and south of East Wheelock Street and the Lewiston parking lot near a former train station just across the Connecticut River in Norwich.
Copies of the plan are available at Dartmouth’s Baker-Berry Library and at municipal libraries in Hanover, Norwich, Lyme, West Lebanon, Lebanon and Hartford.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.