SERC Campus Renewal is Underway
From Navy Base to Research Learning Center
Schoodic Education and Research Center, once a Navy installation and now a National Park Service Research Learning Center, is undergoing a transformation that will make its facilities more accessible, functional, and green.
The plan for change is ambitious, but it is moving forward as scheduled, despite the weather and the surprises that construction projects often bring. Moore Auditorium, a state of the art meeting center is completed and in use for lectures, meetings, and events. Schooner Commons (the main dining facility) has been updated and expanded to now accommodate about 300 diners each day. Demolition of fourteen buildings allowed the creation of open spaces.
The renovation at the Schooner Club removed the bar, straightened out an awkward hallway and significantly expanded one of the dining areas, pushing it out some twenty feet. These changes will make this space more adaptable to a variety of functions while still keeping the rustic charm of log walls and field stone fireplace.
Roads have been removed and relocated. Pedestrian walkways will replace roads in the central part of the campus. We will create a green space in place of the parking lot between the old chapel (now Eliot Hall) and the old children's development center and bowling alley (Dorr Hall). Landscaping, consistent with native species, will be installed to offset the blacktop removal. The result will be a park-like campus with more pedestrian walkways or footpaths to increase walking access on the campus. Most of the current interior roads will be removed or redirected to the perimeter of the campus. Centralized parking areas (one between the administration and classroom buildings, the other close to the Schooner Commons dining facility) will provide access to buildings while minimizing traffic on campus.
Substantial remodeling has begun on Eliot Hall (formerly the chapel), turning it into a flexible classroom facility to support the Schoodic Education Adventure, the on campus program for middle school students. The former medical/dental building, now renamed George M. Wright Hall, is undergoing a major renovation so that it can serve as a teaching laboratory facility to support college programs and on-campus researchers. Wright Hall will be a green building, complete with a sod roof and solar panels.
The iconic Rockefeller Building, constructed as the base’s first barracks, will once again serve as lodging but will also include reception, meeting and office space, and a visitor center, thanks to the $1 million donation of Edith Robb Dixon.
During renovation and reconstruction, much of the campus infrastructure will be renewed, reconfiguring the water system on campus, replacing lighting, and more.
Projected completion of all of this work is scheduled for sometime during the summer of 2011. At that time, the conversion from a retired military base to a campus equipped to support the research and education functions that are its new mission will be substantially complete.