After inciting more than two years of neighborhood controversy, the College will finally break ground for the construction of the Roth Center of Jewish Life at Dartmouth next week.
The center will house Hillel, the Jewish students' organization at Dartmouth. Dartmouth is the only Ivy League institution without a center for Jewish life.
Starting on May 29, the College will prepare for construction on an empty lot on Occum Ridge Road between Delta Delta Delta sorority and a private home. Building has been delayed for almost two years due to neighborhood concern over the center's size and location and concern it will increase traffic in the surrounding neighborhood.
Construction will begin shortly after Commencement. Building is expected to take 12 months. It will be dedicated in the fall of 1997.
"Dartmouth is an institution that moves very carefully and very thoughtfully," said College Rabbi Daniel Siegel.
"We took a very thoughtful and respectful path when it came to presenting our plans to the community and the town," he said.
"It is very important to the College and the community that we be real neighbors," Siegel said. Hearing the concerns of the community was very important to Hillel and only added four or five months to the construction process, he said.Hillel is currently located on Summer Street near Hanover High School, but the building does not contain facilities adequate for a student center, according to a College press release. The new facility will be more than 11,000 square feet and includes a worship and dining area for more than 200 people.
The new center will house the existing programs of the Dartmouth community and those of the Upper Valley Jewish community.
It is "definitely going to be a part of the College," Siegel said.
While the center is not going to look like a private home, it will have the informality of a home and be appropriate to the surrounding area, he said. Land has been added to the lot for parking and landscaping which will separate the building from Tri Delta and neighboring homes.
The center will represent the Jewish presence in New England, and the building will be "distinctly and clearly Jewish," Siegel said.
Siegel said he hopes the center will be a cultural and intellectual program that will add to the overall Dartmouth community and aid interaction with campus spiritual and non-spiritual life.
Securing funding for construction and upkeep also slowed the development process down. The center has been funded by $2.7 million in gifts and pledges.
The family of New York City real estate developer Steve Roth '62 has given much of the funding for the center.
Associate Director of Major Gifts Karen Blum said the College is still trying to "deepen the endowment for the building."
She explained that while there was an initial budget of $3 million the College has collected more in order to "richen the endowment." She described the endowment as the "life-insurance for the building."
The proposed Center has been embroiled in controversy since November, 1993 when residents of Occum Ridge submitted a petition to College President James Freedman and the College's Board of Trustees expressing concern about "parking size and placement, traffic access and safety, scope of services and size-design of building."
The College's Office of Facilities Planning tried to address the residents' complaints by modifying and reducing the plans for the Center while expanding the adjacent parking lot.
College President James Freedman and others will dedicate the center at 11 a.m next Wednesday, according to the release.
The building was designed by the New York City architectural firm of Kliment and Halsband, which designed the computer science department's Sudikoff Laboratory.
