The Campus Plan

Colby completed its move from downtown Waterville to the "new" campus 50 years ago this year, and it has been more than 70 years since campus architect Jens Fredrick Larson was hired to order the buildings and grounds on Mayflower Hill. Since the groundbreaking for the first building, Lorimer Chapel, in 1937, the campus has been filled to the point where Larson's vision has been fully realized for some time.

Perhaps the most distinguished college and university architect of his era, Larson conceived the Colby campus as a place for up to 1,000 students, and, understandably, he didn't foresee ways in which the ubiquitous automobile shaped American life in the second half of the 20th century.

As Colby moved into its recent strategic planning effort, it was a school of not 1,000 but 1,800 students, its parking lots were at or beyond capacity, and it needed up to 90 more faculty and administrative office spaces than were available. The gross square footage of indoor space at Colby was about two thirds of what Bowdoin or Middlebury maintain.

"I walked into a campus that's bursting at the seams," President William Adams said. One of Colby's strategic advantages over the years has been its efficiency, he noted, and that is particularly true of the efficiency with which it uses facilities. "We've been modest with respect to the growth of the physical plant and we've outstripped its capacity. We've got to address that," he said.

Before arriving in Waterville, Adams helped select an architectural firm, Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott, and as part of the strategic planning process a Campus Planning Group composed of faculty, administrators and students was formed to study both what new facilities need to be built and where they should go.

Arnie Yasinski, vice president for administration, led the campus planning initiative, which concluded that Colby needs about 150,000 more square feet, most of it academic space. The group proposed four new buildings and a scheme for siting them that should keep Colby on national "prettiest campus" lists. The proposed buildings:

"Once we identified those needs the issue became where should new buildings go?" Yasinski said. The group was eager to maintain the beauty and order of the campus in a planned fashion but without extending the formal quadrangle too far, physically or conceptually. Planners needed a flexible framework for siting buildings that anticipated a wide range of future needs without foreclosing options for optimal organization. "We needed to honor the Larson plan without imitating it," Yasinski said.

The campus planning section of the Strategic Plan is the last to be finalized, and though conceptual directions have been identified, the plan won't go to trustees for approval until October. Several things are clear, however: extension of the academic and administrative core of campus--including some of the four new buildings--will require moving across Mayflower Hill Drive; development will need to break out of the formal quadrangle of the Larson plan; and no one wants the view from Miller Library and the academic quad blocked by new construction.

Details aren't fully resolved, but the committee imagines an area tentatively called "The Colby Green" on the east side of Mayflower Hill Drive with new buildings (and the existing Lunder House) sited somewhat more informally than those on Larson's quadrangles. While construction will certainly continue the tradition of Colby bricks, the less formal arrangement on the Green may permit discreet uses of other building materials, Yasinski said.

An architectural firm, AnnBeha Architects, Inc. of Boston, was hired this spring to design and plan the new alumni center building, which will be sited on the northeast corner of The Colby Green.

One effect of the decision to expand across Mayflower Hill Drive is the need to ensure the safety of pedestrians crossing what has become a busy roadway. "We need to look at what we can do to reduce the traffic and slow it down," Yasinski said.

To reduce traffic, Colby is working with the state and city on a new bypass road that would close the steep hill leading to the Thayer campus of MaineGeneral Medical Center and route that traffic behind the athletic complex and the soccer fields.

Officials also are studying traffic calming--measures to reduce the speed of the traffic that will continue to use Mayflower Hill Drive and Campus Drive (the roadway between the field house and the football field).

The campus planning effort also will redesign parking and identify potential future building sites beyond the four structures included in the Strategic Plan for Colby. The result is a blueprint for Colby's growth over the next 10 to 15 years plus a flexible framework for expansion that should guide campus development for the next three or four decades, Yasinski said.