By CLAIRE BESSETTE
Day Staff Writer
Published on 10/31/2003

Hartford — Gov. John G. Rowland ended 10 years of frustration and anticipation Thursday, announcing that Three Rivers Community College will be consolidated at the Thames Valley campus on New London Turnpike, the site preferred by city officials who blocked the controversial plan to put the college on Mahan Drive.

“Since 1995, there have been six different studies on 12 different sites,” Rowland said after a brief meeting with Mayor Arthur Lathrop and state community colleges Chancellor Marc Herzog. “This really will be the best of all worlds. It's the best site, by a consensus of state and city officials.”

As part of the plan, the Norwich Regional Vocational Technical School will move to the vacated Mohegan campus on Mahan Drive, with a $44 million allocation. The “best guestimate” for the college consolidation is $75 million, Rowland said.

Rowland's decision was heralded by Mayor Lathrop and several City Council members who drew criticism this summer when they voted to reject the previous state choice — promoted by Rowland's Office of Policy and Management — to consolidate the college at the Mohegan campus on Mahan Drive.

“The governor and the chancellor have done the right thing for the students, the faculty and the city,” Mayor Lathrop said.

Democratic Alderman Benjamin Lathrop, who led the council's effort to take an official stand against the Mohegan campus, thanked the Republican governor for assisting the Democratic incumbent council candidates by endorsing their choice for the college location just five days before Tuesday's election.

“He certainly didn't politicize it,” Benjamin Lathrop said. “It's a Republican governor and a Republican mayor helping a Democratic slate.”

Democratic Alderman Robert Booth had similar feelings. Booth said aldermen showed political courage to take on the controversial issue.

“It's a great day for Norwich, and it's particularly a great day for the incumbents,” Booth said. “We had enough guts and fortitude to take a leadership position. I am very happy the governor did this, and I think it is great.”

The myriad of college consolidation plans started with a master plan in 1994 to consolidate the college at the Mahan Drive campus. State legislators then pushed a plan to move the college to Preston on the former Norwich Hospital campus. Norwich officials eventually objected to that plan, and the City Council staunchly supported an effort to build a downtown waterfront campus. Rowland rejected that idea in 2002, saying it was too costly at $100 million and would consume too much valuable commercial land.

While supporters of the downtown campus and the Preston location still retained hope, the college board concentrated on the existing two college campuses.

Officially, Rowland's decision announced Thursday will be a recommendation to the board of trustees for state community colleges to endorse a 2001 plan to consolidate the college on New London Turnpike. The state board had endorsed the same plan to consolidate at Thames Valley in late 2001, after a consultant hired by the board recommended Thames Valley as the top site. But OPM in May of 2002 interceded by recommending the Mahan Drive expansion, saying it would cost slightly less and could be done quicker.

The board is expected to vote Nov. 17 to approve the Thames Valley plan again and to ask the state Department of Public Works to start environmental and traffic studies of the Thames Valley property.

It was those studies on the proposed Mohegan campus consolidation that touched off strong opposition by neighbors and later city officials to the Mahan Drive location. Residents said traffic congestion at the Route 169-Washington Street intersection already is congested to the point where drivers have to wait through two or three cycles of lights.

Opponents also argued that chronic flooding problems would worsen if the campus expanded, despite plans by the state to improve drainage by creating two ponds at the rear of the property to collect rain water during heavy storms.

“I would have had the pond right in my back yard,” said Mary English of 99 Harland Road-Route 169. “This is best decision for everybody.”

Attorney Donald Beebe, whose office is at the corner of the intersection, organized the opposition. Beebe praised the City Council for taking the controversial stand and pestering the state to reconsider the decision.

“Had it gone at the (Mahan Drive) site, the problems would have been phenomenal,” Beebe said. “The impact on the city would have been phenomenal. The water problem is phenomenal, and it would have just increased.”

The residents directly across the street from the main entrance to the Thames Valley campus enthusiastically welcomed the expanded campus to their neighborhood.

Cheryl and Rowland Sherman live on New London Turnpike between the existing Three Rivers building and the high school. Their daughter graduated from Three Rivers in June.

“They're good neighbors,” Rowland Sherman said. “I think this is an excellent plan. We're thrilled for them. Maybe now they can do what they had hoped to do with the Preston campus — create a full-time campus.”

The consolidation plan itself would create what Herzog called “a real campus atmosphere.” When complete, the new college would have 331,000 square feet of space in a horseshoe-shaped building. Two wings of the building with a green between them would be visible from New London Turnpike. Most parking would be behind the complex, with narrow lots to the sides and in front.

In the first phase of the project, a new 128,000-square-foot building would be built. Classes would move into that building, allowing contractors to renovate the existing Thames Valley building and begin vacating the Mahan Drive campus. That would allow the high school to begin renovations there, adding new laboratories, machine shops and classrooms. In the final phase the high school building would be renovated into college space.

Norwich Tech involuntarily became part of the Three Rivers quagmire in 2001, when the state college board first released the concept of incorporating the high school building into the consolidation plan. Norwich Tech's own $50 million major renovation to update the school for the first time in 40 years stopped when state and local officials started bantering about several proposed sites for the college.

Although Norwich officials universally applauded the governor's announcement Thursday, some expressed concern that the plan does not include an access road through the former Uncas on Thames Hospital campus, directly behind Thames Valley, to Route 32.

c.bessette@theday.com
Go Back