The College’s Lyme Road Plans

Lyme Road Apartments: The little brother who bothers you until you’re too exhausted to say no …

In February, Dartmouth Campus Services suspended its plans for the proposed Lyme Road construction until further notice. Residents and students alike offered opposition to the dorms, and our avid readers will remember a satirical piece comparing the campus commute to the Oregon trail. Without so much as a whisper for three months, the urban planners stepped aside and pondered their strategy. Today, they are back with the newest attempt to expand the Big Green into the far reaches of the Upper Valley. Their road map, Planning for Possibilities, a Strategic Campus Framework, details the plan ad nauseum. Thankfully, your author has taken the time to cut through the buzzwords (“leverage,” “vibrant,” “optimize” … the list goes on) to get a sense for the real project at hand. It looks like this.

Three buildings, to be constructed between 2023 and 2025, will house 400 undergraduates or 300 graduates west (on the river side) of the first traffic circle on Lyme Road. The site faces the Co-Op market and rugby fields, currently used for walking, running, and cross-country skiing in the winter. Upon completion, it will comprise 128 units, a fitness center, common areas, trails to access Pine Park, and apartments for live-in faculty. The plans also propose room to grow for academic buildings and “potentially a 9-hole golf course,” though a deeper reading reveals this to be “practice holes … at other appropriate locations.” Currently, the project waits, and will remain waiting, in its planning phase until the Hanover Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment give their respective seals of approval.

The natural question to follow is … why? According to Planning for Possibilities, Dartmouth needs space to house students in order for the school to complete dorm renovations. The demand for “living [that] addresses the need to update our existing undergraduate stock” led to three potential solutions. First, “enrollment smoothing,” of the student population. You can imagine the alumni response. Second, expansion of existing facilities. Third, construction of new facilities altogether. Winner winner. Readers may be consoled in the fact that their residence 1.6 miles from campus would merely be temporary. After a year or two, residency would return to the original dorm. [1]

Several concerns remain for students. How will Dartmouth accommodate the need for transportation? Will this create campus division? Will the project have a substantial carbon footprint? Does Domino’s deliver to Lyme? If these questions resonate with you, there is still time to speak out. Dartmouth Campus Services welcomes community feedback and is hosting several community meetings. A session has already been held on sustainability and transportation (August 1). Others are forthcoming: programming, activation, and student experience (August 8), and residential building design materials (August 15). Each will take place from 6-8pm in the Oopik Auditorium of the Life Sciences Center.

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[1] Dorm renovations are planned for each consecutive year after Zimmerman in 2023, followed by: Choates; Fayerweathers; Mass Row; Lord – Streeter – Gile; Butterfield – Russell Sage; Ripley – Woodward – Smith; Topliff; Richardson/Wheeler; French/Judge; and Maxwell/Channing Cox.