HANOVER — Beautifying public spaces and establishing a better relationship with the town of Hanover are among the goals of Dartmouth College’s next master plan, according to a college official who is helping to oversee the project.
“We’re really looking at a comprehensive picture. It’s not just about the land and the building, it’s about our systems,” Joanna Whitcomb, Dartmouth’s director of campus planning, said at a public meeting Wednesday attended by about 50 Hanover residents and members of the college community. The plan is still being drafted, and the college has hired New York-based architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle as consultants.
Whitcomb, who is also a member of the Hanover Selectboard, said the plan looks at ways to beautify and improve the campus over the next 20 to 30 years.
Although Dartmouth’s master plan website includes a map titled “Regional Campus in the Upper Valley” that shows college holdings in Lebanon around Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Whitcomb said future development, if required, would most likely stay in Hanover.
When one attendee asked whether the college planned to expand its campus to the college-owned golf course, which sits on Lyme Road just north of downtown Hanover, Whitcomb noted that the land has been identified as a potential “future land bank,” though she said there are no current plans to develop there.
But Whitcomb also said the way the campus is set up — with the Connecticut River to the west and downtown Hanover to the south — puts a physical constraint on expansion plans.
“The only real land for expansion is to the north,” she said.
Other attendees had questions about potential enrollment growth and how that will affect the master plan.
“We have identified it as an issue,” Whitcomb said, adding that for the time being, the college doesn’t plan to expand its student body. But the planners are talking to college leadership about what the enrollment could look like in 20 to 30 years. Whitcomb said they don’t have the numbers yet but plan to share them with the public when they do.
Another person raised the question of the future of Rennie Farm, Dartmouth-owned land in Hanover Center where the college disposed of the cadavers of animals used for medical research in the 1960s and 1970s, contaminating the land.
“The plan for Rennie Farm in the short term is to clean it up,” Whitcomb replied, saying that there aren’t any plans “on the horizon” for the land beyond remediation. “It’s something that we should look at.”
In addition to looking at new development, the master plan will include ideas about beautifying the existing campus, both through landscaping and putting more focus on public, pedestrian spaces.
One consideration revolves around Vox Lane, a narrow street that runs south from East Wheelock Street and is currently lined with parking spaces. Whitcomb said the development team has been talking about moving the parking spaces — either under Vox Lane or out of the area entirely — to make room for public space.
Calling the potential at Vox Lane an “incredible opportunity,” Whitcomb also raised the question of changing areas around the lane. In particular, she said, the group has been considering what to do with the college’s 121-year-old oil-burning power plant, which sits just to the south. Dartmouth is moving to a new heating system, including the possibility of a biomass plant along Route 10 or at the former Trumbull-Nelson site on Route 120. She raised the idea of removing the power plant and replacing it with a community center but didn’t mention any concrete plans for the site.
When it comes to public outdoor spots, Whitcomb said college planners want to create more areas like the Dartmouth Green; that is, places where students, staff, and members of the surrounding community want to spend time outside. Other green spaces around campus, such as the area in front of the Life Sciences Center off Dewey Field Road, could become as iconic as the Dartmouth Green with a little investment in their landscape, she said.
“There are all of these spaces that are equally loved but they don’t have a name,” Whitcomb said.
Though the master plan is still being drafted, Whitcomb used the meeting to take questions on the planning process, and outline the seven main “themes” of the master plan.
The first few themes involve ensuring that existing buildings are being used in the most efficient way possible, as well as identifying new spaces on campus that could use some improvement. Whitcomb noted that Dartmouth has moved major facilities before — including Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital’s relocation to a new Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center campus in Lebanon in 1991, and posited, “What’s the next bold move?”
Part of the plan revolves around strengthening the bond between the college and the town, which was frayed when Dartmouth went to the New Hampshire Supreme Court and successfully reversed a 2016 Hanover Planning Board decision denying site plan approval for a 70,000-square-foot indoor practice facility next to a residential neighborhood. The building is now under construction.
Around 700 Dartmouth employees work in downtown Hanover, meaning that they regularly contribute to and support local businesses and restaurants, Whitcomb said. But the number of in-town employees also comes with challenges, namely making parking tighter for residents and visitors. Establishing a better connection with the town and beginning to treat the town and the college “as one” is a necessary part of the college’s future, Whitcomb said.
“Dartmouth is only eight years younger than the town,” she told attendees. “We’ve grown up together.
The forum was one of several public meetings since the college started developing the master plan in April. Initially, the planning group believed the development process would take nine months, but Whitcomb acknowledged Wednesday that they “bit off more than we could chew.” Now, she said they hope to put together a draft of the plan by January, and bring it to the Dartmouth board of trustees by June.
This year marks the first time in 17 years that Dartmouth has seriously examined its master plan. The previous plan, which was presented in 2002, envisioned that the core campus would be built out over the next 10-20 years, possibly bringing graduate student housing to the area just north of the Life Sciences Center.
Attendees, some of whom have Dartmouth ties themselves, were positive about what they heard.
“I like that they’re being transparent,” Hanover resident and architect Sue Reed said following the meeting. She added that the college is more open than it has been with development projects in the past, referencing the 2017 proposal to build a large dormitory in the wooded College Park parcel. The college ultimately decided to build a dorm where some tennis courts sat along East Wheelock Street.
Reed, a 1981 Dartmouth graduate who has been active on the Alumni Council, said she’s happy to see the school taking the town into consideration.
“I’m glad they’re encouraging people to think of the college and the town as not separate entities,” Reed said.
Resident Daniel Chamberlain, who’s been following the master plan process since the spring, echoed Reed’s sentiment about the school’s transparency.
“It’s nice to see the evolution of the planning,” said Chamberlain, who works for the Dartmouth library and said he hopes Dartmouth will do more to expand transit options.
The master plan process is separate from a “budget project” announced on Monday by Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon, which will look for new sources of revenue and assesses the college’s funding over the coming decades, according to the Dartmouth website.
Projections for 10 years from now show the college running a $72 million deficit, according to the report.
“The college’s revenue sources are unlikely to increase significantly, and could decrease, depending on outside economic forces,” the college said. On top of that, Dartmouth has several expensive projects in its future, including its $200 million “green energy project.”
The budget project will be broken into three teams: one to seek out new revenue opportunities, one to examine how much it costs to run to the college, and one to communicate with the college community about the process.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.