An architectural rendering shows the suite-style apartment building that will be part of the Ridgeline student housing to be built in the coming year.
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A rendering of the townhouses to be built on Adirondack View for student housing.

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — On Monday, June 8, by a unanimous vote, the Town of Middlebury Development Review Board (DRB) approved Middlebury College’s plan to build a new residential complex on the western side of campus. The new 158-bed facility includes four buildings, and will be built on a parcel of the Ridgeline Woods, off Adirondack View.

The complex will include three buildings along Adirondack View Road that will each include 4 townhouse units. Each townhouse unit will include eight single bedrooms with full size beds on three levels of living space – two on the main floor, two on the lower level, and four on the upper level. Each townhouse unit will also include a living room, a full kitchen, three bathrooms and laundry facilities. In total, the townhouse units will house 96 students.

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An artist’s rendering shows the plan to develop student housing in the Ridgeline area on the western side of campus, including three townhouse-style buildings and a fourth building with suite-style apartments.

The fourth building will be a larger building located in the Ridgeline area that will offer suite-style apartments with either 3 or 4 single bedrooms with full size beds in each of them. Each apartment will also include living space and bathroom facilities. The building will have large common spaces, shared kitchen facilities, and shared laundry facilities for the students living in the building. The Ridgeline apartment building will house a total of 62 students.

Middlebury Project Manager Tom McGinn, who made the presentation, told the DRB that when the four nearby Ridgeline social houses were built in 1996, the area was actually permitted for eight houses. As a result, electrical and water infrastructure are already in place to accommodate the larger building.

New pathways with enhanced lighting will connect the residential complex to the Ridgeline parking lot to the west.

This will be Middlebury’s first new major residential construction since the completion of Atwater Residence Halls in 2004. Since then the student body has grown beyond campus housing capacity. To accommodate the growth, some students have been housed in modular units (often referred to as “the mods”) located adjacent to the Ridgeline parking lot, while others have moved to non-college owned rental units in town. The new Ridgeline complex will allow students living off campus to return to campus housing and for the College to remove the modular units, which have exceeded their expected life.

“This will be a terrific addition to our campus housing stock,” said Doug Adams, associate dean of students for residential and student life. “As a residential college, it’s important that students feel they’re part of the fabric of our campus community. The design of these buildings will allow students to live near their academic and social centers while continuing the small-community feel they’ve enjoyed in the ‘mods’ or off campus.”

Middlebury is working with Kirchhoff Campus Properties (KCP), of Pleasant Valley, New York, to develop the new complex. Kirchhoff has been involved in developing and/or constructing over 13,000 student beds for leading colleges and universities in the northeast.

The College is in the process of seeking an Act 250 permit–the state’s environmental review process–and hopes to begin construction this August with a completion date of September 2016.