A $500 million dollar project aims to bring new student housing to Dartmouth college students, freeing up some of the housing stock in Hanover.
Josh Keniston, vice president of capital planning and campus operations for Dartmouth, said $100 million will go to creating 285 beds that’ll be available for students in the fall of 2026, located at 25 West Wheelock Street.
Funds will also help with renovations to older campus housing that need repairs and upgrades like energy efficient windows that can help the school lower its carbon emissions footprint.
Keniston said the college hopes to add 1,000 new beds by 2034.
“At a kind of a very base level, we need to make sure that we have access to quality and affordable housing for everyone in our community and we also need to make sure that Dartmouth, as one of the larger institutions in the region is supporting the the broader goals of what the region needs,” Keniston said.
About 10,000 housing units are needed in the Upper Valley by 2030, according to an initiative by three regional planning commissions.
Keniston said that undergraduate students have had to look off campus for housing in Hanover as the college has not had enough apartments.
By creating more on campus housing, Keniston said the Hanover housing market could see more vacancies for residents.
In 2023, Grafton County had a 2.3% vacancy rate for all rentals, and the median price for a two-bedroom in the county this year was $2,027.
“As we build more housing on campus and increase the percent of our students that we have, that opens up the general market more broadly,” he said.
The college is also focusing on adding other housing options for graduate students.
“I think part of the rationale for why this needs to be such an important part of what we're working on – is it's really about how do we ensure that we are building the community that we want at Dartmouth, but more broadly in the Upper Valley,” Keniston said. “How do we make sure that we are supporting the health and wellness of our community?”
As part of the new housing initiative, the college has raised its contribution to the Upper Valley Loan Fund to $3 million. That fund gives developers low interest rates loans to build workforce housing.
“I think that all is just kind of coming together to really set an example of how you can create community partnerships and really put kind of housing on the map and make a dent in what I think has been kind of an ongoing challenge that very few have kind of unlocked a solution to,” Keniston said.
