Inn’s renovation faces unexpected expenses
By Madeline Zeiss, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, February 23, 2012
As the Hanover Inn undergoes changes to modernize its facilities, the renovations and construction that prompted the Inn’s Dec. 5 closure have progressed according to schedule, according to Hanover Inn manager Joseph Mellia. During the course of the renovations — which were originally projected to cost $21.5 million — the total cost of the project has risen to $41 million, according to Director of Media Relations for the College Justin Anderson.
The Inn is projected to open on June 1, in time for Commencement, according to Mellia.
The increased costs, which exceed the projected cost of $21.5 million by $19.5 million, include “costs associated with correcting existing building code,” as well as changes that are “more significant than expected” to the building’s infrastructure, Anderson said. A new sprinkler system and updates to plumbing, heating and cooling systems have also contributed to the increase in the project’s cost.
“In essence, all of these things were more extensive and/or costly than initially expected,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the College believes the full cost of the renovations can be funded by proceeds from the issuance of 30-year bonds, revenues from the Inn, proceeds from the 2010 sale of the Minary Conference Center and other investments.
A new bus shelter will also be constructed on Wheelock St. near the Inn, according to Mellia. The Town of Hanover, assorted federal agencies and the College will undertake the project, which will function as a more expansive shelter and information point, Mellia said.
Members of the Inn’s staff continue to operate as “close to normal as possible” with a major renovation taking place at the hotel, Mellia said. While operational teams plan for the hotel’s re-opening and train staff members, sales and catering teams continue to book “off-premise” catering events and prepare new programs that will take place in the Inn’s new meeting and conference center.
The Inn’s reservations staff has started assisting guests with securing reservations for the June opening and recommending local area hotels for guests with immediate needs, Mellia said.
Representatives from Engelberth Construction, the firm hired to complete the renovations, have worked to keep construction “on track,” Mellia said. The process has been facilitated by recent warm weather.
Because the renovations are internal, the outside facade of the Inn will be “totally preserved,” making construction more difficult and confined, Anderson said.
Great effort has been made to preserve the Inn’s exterior, as it functions as a historic symbol of the College, according to Anderson.
“The Inn is really the public face of Dartmouth, and it is the first thing so many visitors to Dartmouth and to Hanover see,” Anderson said. “It needed major renovations to fix the interior and also to modernize and update it and maintain the Inn as a business and to reflect the success of Dartmouth.”
Dartmouth began a process of exploring options for implementing physical, financial and professional improvements needed at the Inn in 2009, Anderson said.
Once fully completed, the Inn will feature a state-of-the-art ballroom and conference center able to accommodate groups of between five and 300 individuals, according to Mellia.
The expanded meeting space should attract a greater variety of visitors to the Inn, promoting Hanover and the College as centers of activity for conferences and academic events, Anderson said.
Since the Inn’s closing, Six South Street Hotel — located two blocks south of the Inn — has experienced a significant increase in customers, according to general manager Don Bruce.
Most recently, the hotel housed class and club alumni officers over Winter Carnival weekend and will host members of the Board of Trustees in the coming weeks.
Simon Pearce manager Mike Vermeulen said business has doubled since Simon Pearce moved from its retail location in the Inn to 15 South Main St. in anticipation of construction last June. Simon Pearce will remain in its new space even after the Inn reopens, largely due to increased space for merchandise in the new location, Vermeulen said.
This renovation is a example of colossal overspending. People in the local building trades are astounded that the College could waste such a sum on renovating an existing structure. The D’s reporter should have spoken to construction industry and hotel experts. One note: most of the current building dates from 1966, hardly a historic structure. http://www.dartblog.com/data/2011/12/009932.php http://www.dartblog.com/data/2012/01/009957.php http://www.dartblog.com/data/2011/12/009940.php
By Joseph Asch ‘79 on Feb 23 | 4:07 am
The Inn was losing a significant amount of money each year before this renovation. With this additional expense from the 30 year bond the losses with be in the millions. That’s a lot to pay for to be the“public face of Dartmouth”. Students will be paying for this until the class of 2042 arrives on campus and by then the Inn will most likely require another renovation. But thanks okay they can always sale the library by then the students will not need all those old books.
By Anonymous ‘42 on Feb 23 | 8:20 am
Wow! allot of money for not being in the Hotel buseness!! I hope our health insurance doesn"t go up.
By Peck on Feb 23 | 8:35 am
This is a great triumph of disastrous management. The College used disaster management for the Inn for decades. Too much pay and benefits for the employees, no standards of service, no reasonable renovations and when all of that failure failed, they handed the management over to a private manager. They could have just gotten some Cornell undergrads to come over to work on their semesters away and brought the Inn right back up to a decent place to stay. The Inn could have and should have been bulldozed and replaced with a completely new structure for less than the now $41 million dollar price tag. The Inn is the perfect public example of the proven fact that the College is incompetent, corrupt, or both and can’t possibly run the College either (and isn’t) other than into the ground.
By William Tell on Feb 23 | 11:49 am
Dartmouth’s Planning, Design, and Construction department once again demonstrates its utter incompetence. PDC sticks out as a part of the college without any apparent supervision, and is used to doing its own thing without gathering community input. The department went ahead with the VAC without any design competition, when any number of great architectural firms would have loved the chance to have a signature building on an Ivy League campus. Rumors of kickbacks arise periodically, and these recent experiences strengthen those perceptions. I truly hope it’s not true. I guess incompetence is better than dishonesty.
By Anonymous on Feb 23 | 12:11 pm
It is time for the Trustees to request the resignation of the administration. The Inn is not the public face of the College. The public face of the College…not Baker Library, not the students, not the administration? When you call the College you get a recording…that’s a great public face. The sale of the Minary Center which has already been used to reduce the structural operating deficit of the College is now going to be reused to pay for the disgraceful waste on the renovation of the Hanover Inn. How many times can the same money be used? As many as you like when you aren’t telling the truth at any point of the discussion. Are the Trustees dead or just brain dead?
By Joe Biden on Feb 23 | 3:07 pm
I know that’s what I’ve been waiting for, for Dartmouth College to reach it’s full potential as a leading educational institution, “A World Class Ball Room” for 5 to 300 people. Once Dartmouth achieves “state-of -the-art” “Ball Room,” there’s no telling what coincidental greatness lies on the horizon for the hoary school.
By Bobo on Feb 23 | 3:39 pm
The Public Face of the College, what visitors and tourists can’t wait to see, is the Hanover Inn? The main block of the Hanover Inn Dates from 1966 and the Inn itself is a completely unremarkable structure, so it is being preserved at great additional expense. Parkhurst built in 1911, Mc Nutt, 1902, Collis 1901, Sanborn 1929, Webster, 1901, Baker 1928, Rollins 1884, Wentworth 1828, Dartmouth 1904, Thornton 1828, Reed 1839, Hopkins Center 1962. Could have fooled us, but they didn’t.
By Anonymous on Feb 23 | 4:31 pm
The college has become a playground for Pizzagali and Engelberth, among others. There is no way that these companies are not in collusion. To have the cost of a renovation double—by a factor of 20 million dollars—is beyond absurd. I think that the community is entitled to see a breakdown of the supposed difficulties and costs that have been encountered. To say that a new sprinkler has added to the cost is nonsensical as they surely knew that they were going to have to put in a new sprinkler. The same for plumbing and electrical. It was beyond obvious that this was going to need to be done.
At the end of the day, the college’s tight turn around times and endowment will continue to fall to contractors. It is, however, not the fault of the contractors—the college administration has failed the community in allowing the contractors to take what they want and do subpar work.
I’d like to further that the quality of a lot of the delivered work in recent construction for the college is poor. The drywall taping and finishing is of poor quality and the seams can be seen quite easily. Tile work in the new dorms is terrible. Half the drains are too high for any water to go into them. The college and its overseers need to demand quality work from the first time and write contracts with serious consequence for delayed work. Change orders that double the price of construction should not be approved.
By Fred Lund on Feb 23 | 8:48 pm