Construction is set to begin on College-owned buildings located on the intersection of East Wheelock Street and North Park Street during the upcoming summer term, according to senior director of project management services Patrick O’Hern, who is overseeing the project. The buildings directly affected by the work include Alpha Phi sorority, Alpha Xi Delta sorority, the Ledyard apartments and McCulloch Hall.
All affected buildings will be closed for housing this summer, with construction expected to be completed by move-in day of fall term, according to O’Hern. Renovations will include updates to the heating and air conditioning units to align with Beilock’s sustainability platform, O’Hern added. In Beilock’s inaugural address, she outlined a commitment to achieving “Real Carbon Zero” on campus.
The construction is expected to help transition the affected buildings towards using hot water for heat,as opposed to steam, O’Hern said.
“You can deliver [heat] 30% more efficiently across campus by using hot water [rather] than steam,” O’Hern said. “It’s all tied to the decarbonization goals and the President’s initiatives.”
O’Hern added that one of the main reasons the selected buildings are the next to undergo renovations is because they are adjacent to the current construction on Andres Hall, Zimmerman Hall and the Brace Commons, which began this past fall.
“The [student] population is lowest in the summer, so we’d like to take advantage of that time,” O’Hern added.
The plans for upcoming summer construction are less extensive than the current construction on Andres and Zimmerman and will therefore be limited to the summer term, O’Hern said. O’Hern said “remnants of the pandemic” could potentially cause a delay in receiving materials and therefore extend the construction time. If additional work is required, construction will resume during the following summer.
“Hopefully we get everything we need, but there were parts of the larger Andres and Zimmerman [renovations] that we couldn’t do last summer that had to get deferred to this summer,” he said. “Electrical equipment in particular seems to take over a year to get sometimes.”
In addition to the work planned for this summer, O’Hern said the College is planning a “comprehensive gut renovation” of the Fayerweathers — a freshman residential hall for students in South House — which is set to tentatively begin this summer. The final decision is pending approval by both the Town of Hanover and the Dartmouth Board of Trustees, he added.
“We want to keep the historic character of those buildings but make them fully accessible,” O’Hern said. “I think the architects have done a really nice job with envisioning the future of that.”
As of now, plans for the construction on the Fayerweathers include more significant renovations than those for East Wheelock Street and North Park Street buildings, O’Hern said. The renovations, which will include connecting North, Middle and South Fayerweather in order to add additional common spaces, elevators and “mechanical space” for heating and air conditioning — are currently planned to last two years.
Road closures on Ivy Lane are set to continue during the day with the additional construction, according to O’Hern. Additionally, O’Hern said that “access and parking impacts” will become finalized in the coming months after the plans are approved by the Town.
APhi president Mira Chiruvolu ’25 and APhi executive administrator Megan Apfelberg ’25 confirmed in an email statement that the sorority house will be closed this summer.
“While we are sad for the [Class of 2026] that they will not be able to live in our facilities, we are excited at the prospects of a more sustainable opportunity in this area and know that our members will still have an amazing sophomore summer experience,” Apfelberg and Chiruvolu wrote.
Although members of APhi are unable to live in the house this summer, Apfelberg wrote in an email to members that the Office of Residential Life will be “opening up some of the North Park apartments for about 16-20 of our members to use this summer.”
AXiD president Devin Tulio ’25, who lived in the AXiD house during her sophomore summer, said that she “really enjoyed” the experience.
“It definitely made me feel a lot more comfortable in the house,” she said. “[The house] really, truly felt like it became a home, and also, it became a common meeting spot.”
Tulio added that the sorority house was a “social space” during sophomore summer — both for those living in the house and for other students on campus.
“I really feel for the [Class of 2026] that won’t have that space,” Tulio said. “I do think getting to live in the house with just your class is a really unique experience for sophomore summer, so it’s definitely very unfortunate that class won’t get that same opportunity.”
