Bates College

Garcelon Quad Dormitories / Lewiston, Maine

Strategically located between Alumni Walk (the core & heart of campus), Lake Andrews (the school’s signature physical feature), and Garcelon Field (home to dozens of football, lacrosse, and other sporting events), the Garcelon Quad Dormitory project promises to becomes one of Bates College’s most innovative student life projects.

The new dorm’s integrated and critical location presents special residential benefits. As one of the last open spaces in the central campus core district, the project also brings several complex design, planning, and construction challenges.

Preserving and enhancing important sightlines while creating the proper aesthetic feel for the new (fairly large) multiple building dormitory footprints is a critical element. Knitting the new buildings into the culture of this existing core campus district is another very critical consideration.

The completed dormitory project (245 beds) will increase the density of this core campus district which will place greater pressure on important operational functions like vehicle access, pedestrian circulation, service access, utility service, parking, emergency access, and landscape presence.

As site civil engineer, our role was to create the site planning to help resolve each of the above issues while supporting the project architect (Cannon Design) in the following key engineering areas:

Site Planning Assistance • Building Location • Utility Routing • Drainage System Evaluation and Expansion • Site Related Permitting • Parking and Circulation Layout • Site Grading • Wastewater Connection Sizing • Exterior Walkways • Site Related Vehicle and Personnel Access