WATERVILLE — The Planning Board on Monday expects to consider approving a final plan for a $200 million, 350,000-square-foot athletic complex at Colby College.
The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the City Council chamber at The Center at 93 Main St.
City Planner Ann Beverage said Thursday that she cannot speak for the board, but probably it will approve the athletic complex plans with conditions.
She said Colby needs approval from the state Department of Transportation for the plan, as well as letters of approval from City Engineer Greg Brown, Fire Chief David LaFountain, the Kennebec Water District and the Waterville Sewerage District.
Colby officials say the athletic center would have the first Olympic-sized swimming pool in the state.
The complex would be built on Campus Drive, diagonally across the street from Johnson Pond, and is expected to be the largest in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, which includes Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Hamilton, Trinity, Williams, Amherst and Connecticut colleges, as well as Wesleyan and Tufts universities.
Construction is expected to start this summer. The building would be ready for occupancy in 2020, after which the current Alfond Athletic Center would be demolished to create green space, according to Mina Amundsen, Colby’s assistant vice president for facilities and campus planning. Sustainability is a key concept for the building and the site, Amundsen told the Planning Board last month.
The building will have a landscaped courtyard that is open to the sky, she said. Wetlands along the edges of the site will be preserved. Stephen Mohr of Mohr & Seredin Landscape Architects Inc., of Portland, said the building will be on 30 acres, 27.5 of which already are developed, so only 2.6 acres will change as a result of the new development. Mohr said the project will not affect any wetland.
The plan includes an indoor competition center with a 200-meter track and a multi-level, 13,500-square-foot fitness center. The new center, to be available for use by the community, region and state, will be among the best Division III facilities in the country, according to Colby officials.
The new center will include a gymnasium, a 50-meter swimming pool, squash and aquatic centers, a hockey arena, studios, training rooms and coaching suites. Colby officials say the center will serve as a resource for the entire campus, as well as for athletes from Waterville, the state and New England.
Construction of the center represents the largest single project in the college’s history and is expected to be an economic boon to the city, bringing in more than $1 million in revenue a year to the area from people staying in hotels and eating and spending money on other activities, according to Colby President David A. Greene. The aquatic center is expected to become a destination in northern New England for swimming groups from across the state.
Excavation started last year to move Colby competition fields to create space for the new athletic complex. Those three new competition and recreational fields include a practice field, a competition soccer field and Bill Alfond Field, which will continue to be used for competition field hockey and lacrosse. The new fields are behind the current athletic center and will be playable in the fall.
Colby also is investing more than $45 million in downtown revitalization efforts that include building a student residential complex and a boutique hotel and renovating a historic building, all on Main Street.
Colby also built and opened last year a lighted, turf baseball-softball complex off Mayflower Hill Drive east of the current athletic center that will continue to be available for the community and local school teams.
In other matters Monday, the board will consider an informal preapplication review by Trafton Realty LLC for a 120,000-square-foot commercial building to be built on Trafton Road.
Also, Webb Road Storage LLC will request an informal preapplication review for a 9,360-square-foot storage unit complex to be built at the intersection of Webb and West River roads.
Both projects would be reviewed under the city’s site plan review and subdivision ordinance.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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