Mount Holyoke Boathouse Nears Completion

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (Dec. 12, 2009) - A community boathouse, which will provide a new home for Mount Holyoke College's crew program and house a number of community-based programs, is nearing completion and will be ready for the crew season this spring.

The $2.1 million community boathouse will be situated on an 8.5-acre, College-owned parcel off Ferry Street. The 4,750-square-foot, single-story, barn-style facility will contain boat storage, two small bathrooms, and a warm-up/stretching area. In recent years, the rowing program has been housed at Brunelle's Marina in South Hadley.

"The new facility will not only support Mount Holyoke College's rowing program, it will allow the College to continue to expand rowing programs to South Hadley, Holyoke, and surrounding communities," crew coach Jeanne Friedman said. "We'd like to thank all the members of the community who have supported our efforts to gain approvals for this project."

Crew began at Mount Holyoke College in 1976 and has grown from a small club to one of the College's largest varsity teams. The Mount Holyoke College crew team has been involved in community outreach for many years and in many venues. The new facility will allow the College to continue or expand programming, including:

  • Access for South Hadley Fire District #2 and the South Hadley Police Department
  • The Care Center of Holyoke’s "Rowing Strong, Rowing Together" program, a nationally recognized program for teenage mothers that includes teams from New Haven, Hartford, and Boston
  • Greater South Hadley Youth Rowing, a program that has been piloted and will be implemented with a new facility
  • Adaptive Rowing, a program for the differently-abled
  • Community rowing for adults, piloted this summer with 12 participants.
  • In addition, the new facility may support other programs, including a rowing camp for women and a community rowing program.

While there will likely be a growing number of programs and partnerships using the facility, general public access will not be possible in consideration of the safety and risk management issues involved. Public access will be through the programs listed above and similar efforts.

Support

The College has won widespread support for this project from the Town of South Hadley and a variety of public and private organizations, including the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation; the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection; the South Hadley Department of Recreation; Northampton Youth and Community Rowing, Inc.; the Community Adolescent Resource and Education Center of Holyoke; and the Foundation for Rowing Education of Northampton.

In addition, support has come from elected officials, including Congressman Richard Neal and State Representative John Scibak.

The College has worked with all appropriate agencies at the local, state, and federal level--including the South Hadley Planning Board, the South Hadley Conservation Commission, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and others--to ensure that all environmental and other relevant standards have been met.

The permitting process for the facility was multifaceted and highly complex and consumed nearly a decade. As part of the successful completion of this process, federal regulators requested that the College move forward with the boathouse in the short term.

The general contractor for the project is Marois Construction of South Hadley.