This story was originally produced by the Valley News. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Dartmouth College plans to build a pair of five-story buildings on West Wheelock Street to house undergraduates.
Representatives from the college are scheduled to go before the Hanover Planning Board on Tuesday to seek site plan approval for two residence halls at 37-43 West Wheelock St., near the Ledyard Bridge.
“Dartmouth wants to recruit the best and the brightest and part of that is making sure they have great places to live,” Josh Keniston, senior vice president for operations at the college, said in a phone interview Thursday.
Sign up for the free Rundown newsletter for more NH news.
Last June, the college bought the two adjoining rental housing properties at 41 and 43 West Wheelock St. from Jolin Salazar-Kish, a Hanover-based real estate developer and Dartmouth graduate. The college demolished the buildings and plans to also knock down the existing building at 37 West Wheelock which the college has owned since 2002, according to property records.
The proposed buildings would provide mostly four-bedroom, apartment-style units for nearly 400 juniors and seniors, Keniston said.
The project is part of Dartmouth President Sian Beilock’s broader goal to raise the percentage of undergraduates living on campus from the current rate of 85% to 90% over the next 10 years, both to strengthen the Dartmouth community, and to free up housing in the greater Hanover community.
“Bringing our undergrads back to campus is clearly a priority from President Beilock,” Keniston said. “The ripple effect is opening up other units in the community, whether it’s for grad students, faculty and staff or other community members. We want to be a real driver in helping to address the housing crisis in the Upper Valley.”
In 2023, the vacancy rate for all rental units in Grafton County was 2.1%, according to New Hampshire Housing’s 2023 Residential Rental Cost Survey Report. A healthy vacancy rate is between 5% and 6%, said Renee Theall, the housing navigator at the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission.
“Any new housing being created is going to be a positive on the market,” Theall said.
Although undergraduate housing may not have as much of an impact on the broader community as a new affordable apartment building, “it takes all different kinds of housing to come at the housing issue we’re seeing right now,” Theall said.
The two proposed buildings are planned to be fully accessible and provide indoor and outdoor amenity space for building occupants, the site plans say.
If the college receives the go-ahead from the Planning Board, construction on the project is anticipated to begin in January with the hope of students moving in by fall 2028.
The project is estimated to cost $95 million, according to the site plans.
The two new halls would put a dent in Dartmouth’s commitment to add a combined 1,000 beds for students, faculty, and staff over the next decade.
Between Russo Hall — another apartment-style undergraduate residence currently under construction adjacent to the proposed buildings — the renovation of Fayerweather Hall and the construction of 21 units in West Lebanon across from Sachem Village, Dartmouth is on track to add 700 beds by fall 2028.
“We are thinking about this holistically,” Keniston said. “This is part of a broader vision for how to develop housing that works with our students and our community.”
Tuesday’s Planning Board meeting is at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Boardroom or on Zoom at: https://zoom.us/j/820154300.
