By Cate Lecuyer
BEVERLY — Endicott College is expanding again, this time with a long-awaited $12.5 million residence hall for 260 students.
"We had planned to put this residence hall in a year ago," President Richard Wylie said. "But with the economy, it was put on hold."
Now, thanks to $10 million in tax-exempt bonds through the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority, a self-funded organization that receives no taxpayer dollars, work on the new dormitory is scheduled to start May 18 — the day after graduation. It will finish up in time for freshmen and sophomores to move in by the fall of 2011.
Wylie said the college will use $7 million of the bond money for the new dorm, and pay for the other half in cash. The remaining $3 million will be used to finance the Hamilton and Wenham halls on Hale Street, which Endicott purchased in 2008.
The new dormitory comes on the heels of the $17 million Center for Visual and Performing Arts, which opened last year. A $16 million science and business center is currently under construction.
People always wonder how big Endicott is going to get, Wylie acknowledged.
The graduate school is continuing to grow, he said, with about 2,000 students worldwide and 500 on campus. With new master's degrees and eventually a Ph.D. program, Endicott plans to seek university status in the next three to four years, Wylie has said.
But as far as the undergraduate program goes, it looks like this is it.
"This is probably, at least in the foreseeable future, the last major growth project" he said.
With space for 260 students, it's meant to bring in an additional 100, topping off an undergraduate enrollment goal of about 2,250, Wylie said. The extra space will allow the school to eliminate the majority of triple rooms on campus, and to bring some students living in apartments in Beverly back onto the college campus.
"I think we have several areas in town where students have been disruptive," Wylie said.
Over the summer, the city passed a noise ordinance that allows police to fine people up to $200, after city councilors — particularly Kevin Hobin in Ward 4 — received a number of complaints about loud parties hosted primarily by college students living in residential neighborhoods.
"We have more students living off campus than we would like," Wylie said. "And this will provide additional housing to bring them back. If we can get the kids to stay on campus, we have the best opportunity to help them mature appropriately."
The brick dormitory will go on the hill between the Bayview and Stoneridge dorms, with a large courtyard in the middle. The area is currently a parking lot for students living in a cluster of modular homes. Sixteen of them have been moved to a foundation and turned into permanent housing because of their popularity, and the remaining eight are not in very good shape and will be destroyed to make way for the new building, Wylie said.
The dorm will be three stories in the front and four in the back, where there's an embankment. It will have a central tower resembling a lighthouse that will serve as a staircase.
"It was aesthetically pleasing," he said of the design. "And symbolic of being by the ocean."
Staff writer Cate Lecuyer can be reached at clecuyer@salemnews.com
