Correction appended
The Hanover Planning Board approved the College's proposed design for the Visual Arts Center by a 6-1 vote on Tuesday, following previous debate over the building's design and its effect on the downtown area. Board member Michael Hingston was the sole dissenter in the vote.
Construction of the Center itself will begin in the spring of 2010. Before the College can break ground, the Spaulding loading dock must be reconstructed and both Brewster Hall and Clement Hall must be demolished, according to Mary Gorman, associate provost and executive officer, who also attended the meeting on Tuesday.
The planning board decided during its July 7 meeting to postpone voting on the Center's design after a number of Hanover residents sent e-mails and letters arguing that the proposal did not meet the long-term design goals for the downtown area, John Scherding, associate director for design in the College's Office of Planning, Design and Construction, previously told The Dartmouth. Much of the dispute centered around the design's adherence to Hanover's long-term downtown plan.
In 2000, Hanover town officials released the Downtown Vision Report, a long-term plan for how the downtown area should be developed. The report stipulated that the town attempt to develop street-level retail business and maintain Hanover's New England village character, The Dartmouth previously reported.
On Tuesday, Scherding explained to the Board why the College had chosen several design features and fielded questions about the design from both the Board and the public. Richard Burke, the College's landscape architect, was also present during the meeting and answered several design-related questions.
"We had done a similar presentation earlier, but they wanted us to focus the group on the relationship between the proposed building and the planning report," Gorman said. "We connected how our proposal reinforced the goals of that study."
Tuesday marked the fifth hearing the Board has held to discuss the design. Planning Board Chair Judith Esmay said she believed the time spent reviewing the project is warranted because of how "critical the Center is to the town."
Although she was initially concerned that the College had not given attention to the Vision Report in its plans, after Tuesday's meeting, Esmay said she was convinced that the College had accounted for the town's goals.
"The College made the best possible presentation and it was clear the College had heard us and was indeed responding to the Downtown Vision Report and had really taken that into consideration," she said. "That was my question all along and they persuaded me."
The tension between the College's need for an academic space and the town's need for an inviting public space "will never fully be resolved," Esmay said. She added, however, that she believes Hanover and the College have "moved as far as we can go."
Esmay said she had not heard any complaints from residents since the announcement of the Board's decision.
Community members at the meeting also expressed concern with a perceived lack of parking at the facility. One Hanover resident called the design "objectively cold and industrial looking," and others voicing concerns over the relationship between the College and the town.
At the Tuesday meeting, Paul Tuhus of Norwich, Vt. criticized the College for allegedly failing to solicit submissions from more than one architecture firm, for not installing an underground parking area and for investing funds to move utility lines on Lebanon St. underground which alleged a senior College official had termed a "bribe" because the lines do not service any College-owned buildings.
Tuhus criticized several design elements that he believes "are not welcoming." He called the design is "a shameless copy of architecture that has existed in this country for decades," adding that the Center resembles a podiatrist's office.
Tuhus also expressed similar sentiments in a July 19 letter published in the Valley News.
The underground parking lot was discounted "early on" due to the underground river and ledge that cause construction of such a facility to not be practical, Scherding said.
Gorman argued that moving the utility lines below ground was a "vested interest" of the College, because it would be more aesthetically pleasing.
Gorman said the College will be hiring a consulting firm to assess the cost of relocating the lines underground, although she said the size of the College's monetary contribution to the project has not been finalized.
Gorman herself wrote a letter to the Editor to the Valley News on July 22, the day after the meeting, reiterating that the College did in fact solicit design proposals from several firms and that paying for utility line relocation was not a "bribe."
"The College's willingness to contribute to the burying of utility lines reflects a commitment to work with the town on the mutual goal of improving downtown aesthetics," she wrote in the letter.
Tuesday night's approval of the project comes approximately a month after the College received a $50-million commitment the largest in Dartmouth history to continue work on the Center.
Board member Joan Garipay was not present for the vote.
Scherding is currently on vacation and could not be reached for comment by press time.
Hingston could not be reached for comment about why he voted against approving the design. On Wednesday, however, the Valley New reported that he "voted against the plan because he didn't like the landscape design, which has no green space between the entrance of the building and Lebanon Street."
