Future first years at Bowdoin may not have to trek to distant Stanwood Lot to retrieve their cars.
In a unanimous decision by the Board of Trustees, the College is now permitted to sell the Brunswick Armory as well as land surrounding the building?which includes Stanwood Lot.
According to Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Katy Longley, the College would sell the property to the Town of Brunswick, which would then use the land as part of the grounds for a new public elementary school.
In addition to the land currently serving as a parking lot, the armory also stores equipment for the Department of Geology.
Barring a failed referendum, Bowdoin would make $387,666 from the sale of the armory, which was purchased from the State of Maine in 2000. The earnings would fund a new boat storage space for the geology department, Longley said.
"[The funds] will probably go toward what the storage needs are? that is where I have tentatively earmarked the money for," she said. "We will either need to take out a new lease or build a new storage facility."
According to a memo from Longley to the Facilities and Properties Committee, the agreed upon sale price is the average of three appraisals funded by the College.
If the sale is completed, first-year parking would be moved to the lots outside of Farley Field House. A new parking lot, constructed on what was formerly Pickard Field, has increased parking in that area to 568 total spaces.
According to the memo sent between Longley and the Properties Committee, planning is underway to ensure that the Farley parking lot is finished this summer "in case the student parking spaces [at Stanwood Lot] are lost before the start of the 2008/09 academic year."
Relocating first-year parking to the Farley Field House lot would be more convenient for first years, said Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols.
"I would say Stanwood is one of our more popular Safe Ride destinations," Nichols said. "We get a significant number of calls to and from that lot. It almost always requires a Safe Ride."
In the past, Bowdoin has worked cooperatively with the town of Brunswick to buy and sell land, Longley said.
"We've done other land swaps with the town when it makes sense," she said. "It promotes good town-gown relationships, so acquisition and disposition occurs fairly frequently."
Longley said she expects a June vote on the sale to pass, particularly since voters supported the plans in an previous local vote.
"The earlier straw vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the new school, so yes, I expect [the sale] to pass," she said.