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Merrimack College celebrated the opening of two new dormitories during a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday celebrating the addition of 540 on-site beds to the 220-acre North Andover campus.
Merrimack President Christopher E. Hopey said the expansion is timely because the college welcomed its largest freshmen class in history, 1,250 students, just a few days earlier.
Hopey said the new dorms, named Essex and Shawsheen, represent a place for students to feel welcomed and build a sense of community and they were financed through an innovative partnership with an investment firm, Collegiate Housing Foundation, and real estate development company, Greystar. Merrimack doesn’t actually own the dorms and instead is leasing the land to the Alabama investment firm that financed the $98 million construction project by selling tax-free bonds.
“So, Shawsheen and Essex to us are more than just residence halls. They are more than just bricks, steel and glass. They are a testament to what vision, partnership and innovation can accomplish. They truly reflect Merrimack’s determination to see possibilities where others may see limits, to imagine what this institution can become and find a way to make that mission real in an era that everybody is down on higher education,” Hopey said.
Nicholas McDonald, college senior legal counsel, told WHAV after the ceremony the contract with Collegiate Housing Foundation is a “multi-decades” deal. McDonald said he prefers not to say the length of the lease period. The Foundation will collect rent payments from the dorm’s residents and pay the college for the use of the land, McDonald explained. At the end of the lease period, the college will own the buildings, he said.
In his remarks Hopey praised the financing plan because, he said, unlike some of its Boston area counterparts, Merrimack is not a wealthy school.
In his remarks. state Sen. Bruce E. Tarr held aloft an oversized pair of scissors, saying they represent the most important tool on the college campus. Just a week ago, Tarr noted, he was on campus for the opening of Merrimack on Main, the new home for the college’s creative arts and architecture and design programs. The college recently purchased the Crest apartment complex, formerly Royal Crest, across the street from the mail campus where some 800 students are currently housed. The college is planning a major renovation project on the apartment property, Hopey said.
The pair of sleek, four-story buildings at the corner of Turnpike and Elm Streets, sit in front of the college’s Collegiate Church of Christ the Teacher. Designed by the North Andover-based architecture firm Cube-3, the dorms have traditional double rooms for 351 students and larger suites with their own bathrooms and living rooms for 189 students. The dorms will be reserved for mostly upper-class students in the college’s honor’s program, according to college spokesperson, Suzanne Adams. The dorms include communal spaces with kitchens, recreational equipment including a pool table, laundry facilities and academic meeting spaces.
The Rev. Raymond F. Dlugos ended the dorm ribbon cutting ceremony with a blessing for the new living spaces.
Merrimack College was founded in 1947 by the Roman Catholic Order of St. Augustine to provide men returning from World War II a place to gain college degrees primarily in a night school format. Its first cohort of women matriculated in 1950.The college was a commuter school until it opened its first residence hall in 1960.
According to the college’s website, the school currently has more than 4,100 undergraduates, 2,400 graduate students and 50 doctoral students enrolled. They hail from 48 states and 63 countries.