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Mount Greylock Regional Superintendent Kimberley Grady is joined by Turner Construction Vice President Carl Stewart and Tim Sears and Ryan Contenta from Williamstown's inspection services for the removal of 'construction zone' signs on the doors to the auditorium.

Mount Greylock Gets Access to School's Auditorium

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Five months after it moved into the renovated Mount Greylock Regional School, the district has full access to the building.
 
Mount Greylock Superintendent Kimberley Grady said Tuesday that the district has received a certificate of occupancy for the middle-high school, an approval that includes use of the school's auditorium.
 
The auditorium, which along with the gym was one of two public spaces remaining from the old Mount Greylock, has been off-limits to the school because of construction delays.
 
While the school opened for classes in September under a temporary certificate of occupancy, the auditorium remained closed.
 
At last week's Mount Greylock School Committee meeting, Grady told the panel that a walk-through with the town's building inspector was scheduled for this week and indicated she was guardedly optimistic about the results.
 
"I hope to send out great news," she said.
 
The delay in use of the auditorium forced the school to hold its fall and winter orchestra, band and choral concerts at alternate locations. Williams College offered the use of Chapin Hall for the fall concert; the winter concert was held in Mount Greylock's cafeteria.
 
Recently, the school decided it once again would hold its spring musical at the college's '62 Center for Performing Arts, where it was lucky enough to stage the play the last couple of years during the addition/renovation project. It was not immediately clear Tuesday afternoon whether the show would be moved back to the middle-high school campus.
 
While the district built a new three-story academic wing, a new cafeteria, new locker rooms, new offices, new library and other academic spaces, the auditorium and gymnasium were renovated. The district's School Building Committee and School Committee opted for renovations because a newly constructed auditorium or gym would have been smaller than the original according to square-footage specifications of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which is participating in funding the addition/renovation project.

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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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