Williams College is building a driveway entrance to the first floor of its parking garage so motorists don't have to drive down the often icy exterior ramp to exit the structure.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College is rerouting traffic into the first floor of the three-level, 89,000 square foot parking deck behind the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance.
Representatives of the college appeared before the town's Planning Board last month to explain the need for the project, which will enable cars to use all three decks year round.
"The center tier of the parking deck is largely unusable in the winter because of icing conditions on the ramp," college attorney Jamie Art told the board. "The electrical de-icing system has been broken. ... There's not a lot of confidence that replacing the electrical heating system will avoid the current situation recurring in a few years."
The deck's existing traffic flow brings all users through the entrance on the third floor at the north end of the structure. Motorists drive down a circular ramp that connects the three levels and leave via a driveway that exits onto North Street.
The failed heating system is supposed to keep the ramp ice free; without the heating element, the ramp becomes dangerously slick in the winter.
"Most garages have covered ramps," said Shaun Garvey, a project manager in the college's Facilities Office. "If you look up standard designs for parking structures, this one doesn't follow any of them."
The parking deck was built in 2002.
"The ramps are so steep that the feedback I'm getting from folks at the college is that even when [the heating system] was working at its best it wasn't adequate. It would melt what's on the surface, but what would build up on the side from plowing would overcome the melting system.
"It doesn't take much of a patch of ice for you to lose control and end up in the wall."
The new driveway currently under construction follows the path of an previously existing walkway from a pedestrian exit.
The college plans to have the driveway in place and the new vehicular entrance operational by the end of November, Art told the Planning Board.
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Williams Seeking Town Approval for New Indoor Practice Facility
By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board last week gave Williams College the first approval it needs to build a 55,000-square foot indoor athletic facility on the north side of its campus.
Over the strenuous objection of a Southworth Street resident, the board found that the college's plan for a "multipurpose recreation center" or MRC off Stetson Road has adequate on-site parking to accommodate its use as an indoor practice facility to replace Towne Field House, which has been out of commission since last spring and was demolished this winter.
The college plans a pre-engineered metal that includes a 200-meter track ringing several tennis courts, storage for teams, restrooms, showers and a training room. The athletic surface also would be used as winter practice space for the school's softball and baseball teams, who, like tennis and indoor track, used to use the field house off Latham Street.
Since the planned structure is in the watershed of Eph's Pond, the college will be before the Conservation Commission with the project.
It also will be before the Zoning Board of Appeals, on Thursday, for a Development Plan Review and relief from the town bylaw limiting buildings to 35 feet in height. The new structure is designed to have a maximum height of 53 1/2 feet and an average roof height of 47 feet.
The additional height is needed for two reasons: to meet the NCAA requirement for clearance above center court on a competitive tennis surface (35 feet) and to include, on one side, a climbing wall, an element also lost when Towne Field House was razed.
The Planning Board had a few issues to resolve at its March 12 meeting. The most heavily discussed involved the parking determination for a use not listed in the town's zoning bylaws and a decision on whether access from town roads to the building site in the middle of Williams' campus was "functionally equivalent" to the access that would be required under the town's subdivision rules and regulations.
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