Dartmo.

Dartmouth’s Real Estate Office is finishing 68 South Main, the most prominent building in the South Block project. Its neighbor, the frame building in the drawing, is number 72.

The latest rendering of the hotel planned for South Street is an improvement over the plainer, more prefab first version.

“The Chimneys,” Ledyard Bank’s building at 2 Maple Street, is finished.

The Real Estate Office page has the best information on the new three-level commercial building about to go up across from the parking garage behind 7 Lebanon Street, sort of across from the Howe.

The Valley News reports that site prep begins today and will involve the demolition of two frame houses behind C&A’s Pizza.

Businessweek also has a short report that explains, as the others do, that the building’s first occupant will be the Studio Art Department once Clement Hall is demolished.

The one view of the building available on the Real Estate site unfortunately does not suggest that it will live up to the standard set by Childs Bertman Tseckares at 7 Lebanon.

The Valley News recently noted that Dartmouth’s real estate office is planning to build a commercial building on Currier Place, which marks the eastern edge of the South Block project.

In an article on an unrelated topic, The Dartmouth published a photo of 68-72 South Main Street, which is the largest commercial building in South Block. The western (Main Street) facade occupies the right side of the photo.

The Dartmouth has reported and provided a brief on a three-level, 72-room hotel planned to open on South Street around 2010. It is not clear whether this is the Currier Street project above, but it does not seem to be. Olympia Development has a rendering of the hotel.

[Update 07.16.2008: These are two different projects. The Dartmouth Real Estate Office is building a commercial building at 4 Currier Street, diagonally opposite the northeast corner of the South Block.]

The Dartmouth and Vox have covered a number of building-related topics recently:

• Zoning for the 53 Commons north of Maynard Street
• The dedication of Kemeny Hall and the Haldeman Centers on the Kiewit site
• The Real Estate Office, which is redeveloping the block south of the Hop
• The Faheys’ gifts
• The Records Management office, which has moved out of Centerra to Etna Road in Lebanon:
  
  

Dartmouth acquired the Sargent Block, which contains the Hanover Inn Motor Lodge (Brooke Fleck, 1960), and it plans to redevelop the entire block. As with the South Block, this means demolishing most of the buildings.

Although the Lodge has been used for the last twenty years or so as a dormitory, it will be closed during the 2006-2007 year. The very attractive new campus map featuring dormitories also omits the Lodge.

These seem to be the first public signs that the Lodge is about to go. It will be interesting to see what the school builds in its place and how closely it follows the Town’s bold vision for the block.

[Update 08.03.2006: text corrected]
[Update 08.09.2006: "Sargent" added]