The board of trustees has approved a science center project that will also transform the east campus with new dorms and a landscaped walkway.

The science center will be on the east campus, on the site of the current Social Dorms. One of those dorms, Davis, has already been demolished.

“The facility will ensure that, among liberal arts colleges, Amherst remains a leader in undergraduate science,” according to a statement from the board of trustees.

 

“The new projects will be linked to one another and to the rest of the campus by a new form of green space,” reads the board statement: “not a traditional quad but a landscaped walkway among open expanses that will encourage foot traffic and outdoor gatherings.”

 

New residence halls will be constructed where the temporary, prefabricated dorms Waldorf and Plaza are now located.

The existing science buildings, Merrill and McGuire, will remain and be developed for other uses.

 

 

 

The current cost estimate is $214 million for the science center. This compares to $270 million for the previous plan, which was abandoned last spring after concerns about cost and disruption. The estimate for the new dorms is $60 million. (The dorms would have been needed under any scenario, because the Social Dorms are at the end of their useful lives.)