Construction on the new $19 million psychology building will likely start next spring according to officials from the Office of Facilities Planning.
"If we start in spring of 1996, we hope to have the building open in the fall of 1997 or the winter of 1998," Assistant Director of Facilities Planning Reed Bergwall said.
The still unnamed building will be built across from the site of the old Mary Hitchcock Hospital on Maynard Street, which will be demolished this summer.
So far the College has not been able to find a major donor for the psychology building.
Vice-President of Development and Alumni Relations Stan Colla said if someone donated 51 percent of the $19 million price tag, they would be able to name the facility.
To make up for the shortfall, the College Board of Trustees decided to fund the building from the College's endowment, Director of Facilities Planning Gordon DeWitt told The Dartmouth in a previous interview.
But despite problems finding a large donor, there have been several smaller donations to name various parts of the building, such as classrooms, Colla said.
"As we get gifts to name portions of the building they will replace the money," from the endowment, he said. "We always are hopeful we'll find someone who would be interested in this kind of project and who would like to lend his or her name to it.
The building, which is being designed by Robert A. M. Stern of New York City, will contain offices, classrooms, laboratories and several animal testing rooms.
It will be four stories above the ground and will have a "gabled roof attic," Wilson said. He said the building will have "neo-Georgian details" and will be "fairly traditional looking in that the vocabulary is very similar to other buildings on campus."
Graham Wyett, a partner in the firm designing the facility, said the building "will fit the historic and current traditions of the Dartmouth campus. It shouldn't look like a building that could go anywhere else."
The building will serve the dual purpose of expanding into the north campus area and combining the psychology department, now housed in Gerry and Silsby Halls.
"We're trying to put a fairly large nucleus of academic facilities at that end of campus," College architect Jack Wilson said. "We've also been completing a number of smaller projects to try to integrate other programs into that area and generate more activity."
In recent months facilities for the computer science department, the Russian Department and Native Americans at Dartmouth were completed in the area.
DeWitt said land formerly owned by the hospital in the north campus area may also be used in the future as a site for a new math building. But he said the new math building will probably not be built for another decade.
"When that is built we'll be able to demolish Bradley and Gerry Halls," he said.
DeWitt said demolition of the old hospital on Maynard Street isscheduled for this summer and is proceeding as planned.
According to Dewitt, most of the building is already empty and any remaining offices will soon be evacuated.
"If they aren't out already, they'll be out this week," he said.
DeWitt said workers are now cleaning the structure and trying to salvage asbestos and other metals for recycling before demolition.
The abandoned hospital will not be demolished in a spectacular explosion, but rather will be stripped and gradually destroyed by the end of 1995 or the beginning of 1996, he said.
