The College began its long-awaited demolition of Towne Field House on Nov. 6, following the discovery of a deteriorating structural beam and the building’s subsequent indefinite closure in March.
According to an Oct. 6 memo circulated by the College’s Office of Planning, Design and Construction, the demolition is anticipated to take place through Dec. 22. To replace its functionality, the College will construct the Multipurpose Recreation Center (MRC), a temporary facility that will house indoor athletic practices, intramural sports, and other recreational activities. The MRC is slated for completion in 2025, according to Athletic Director Lisa Melendy.
During the demolition process, large excavators will first remove the walls of the structure, then the roof surface, the beams, and the rest of the structure. The demolition will temporarily limit the number of parking spaces and increase the amount of noise in the area.
“You could think of it more as a methodical dismantling than a demolition,” Senior Project Manager Shaun Garvey said in an interview with the Record. “The whole demolition process has been designed by an engineering firm, and it has a sequence to it… It’s not like coming in with a wrecking ball and knocking walls down.”According to Garvey, the demolition is anticipated to cost around $1 million. The MRC’s projected cost is $30 million, according to Melendy. Towne’s closure has displaced numerous intramural, club, and varsity teams, as well as programming for Williams Outdoor Orientation for Living as First-Years (WOOLF) groups and other campus events. It has also relocated some College events, like the Purple Key Fair and the Family Days Luncheon.
Some of these groups and events may have to make do with no immediate alternative to Towne, Melendy said. “The truth is we probably won’t be able to accommodate all of them, especially some of the Town and College events,” she said.
Preliminary designs for the MRC include a 200-meter in-door track, an amenity previously missing from Towne. In the relatively short term, the proposed recreational facility should meet the needs of various varsity, club, and intramural sports, according to Melendy. However, she stressed that while the facility’s ultimate use is still undecided in the long term, it will be “a permanent asset, and we will continue to think about how we can use it going forward.”
For now, some teams have trained in off-site facilities and sought other short-term solutions. Track and field travel by bus to North Adams to use warehouses rented by the college that are outfitted with workout equipment and an approximately 60-meter stretch of track, which some members of the team refer to as the “track shack,” according to men’s track and field co-captain Jinwoo Kang ’24. The team’s sprinters make the trip to North Adams three times a week, while distance runners train on campus. Besides the logistical difficulties of the move, the division of the team might pose challenges to developing cohesion, according to Kang. “It’s difficult to have the team separated like this — split up the team, send one to another location, keep one on campus,” he said.
Though the team’s short long-distance runners — who often met in Towne to train together — are now split up for practices, the team’s optimism for success this year has not waned. Kang pointed out that in the 2019 season, when the teams also didn’t have access to Towne — due to the discovery of damage to the asphalt substrate underneath the tracks and trace amounts of asbestos in the glue that keeps the asphalt and track together — women’s track and field won the Div. III Indoor National Championship.
For JP Wong ’24, a member of the baseball team, the demolition is a significant loss. “It feels like they’ve had a long time to try to figure something out,” Wong said. “And the best they could do is a temporary structure that won’t be ready until after we need it… As a senior, it’s frustrating.”
This winter, baseball will practice in batting cages recently installed in Lasell, which will be equipped with nets from Towne and new turf on the gym floor.
The finite amount of indoor practice space, however, means that when baseball begins practicing in Lasell, the crew team will be displaced from its typical workout area to the second floor of Greylock Hall.
However, not all rearrangements have been for the worse. Although WOOLF groups typically sleep in Towne the night before the camping trips depart campus, this year’s move to the Lansing Chapman Ice Hockey Rink allowed gear storage to be separate from sleeping spaces. According to WOOLF leader Jamie Woods ’26, the move made organization and cleanup easier. “We are lucky to have another building that is also a big indoor space, literally 10 feet away [from Towne],” Woods said.
Garvey added that the campus has something to look forward to with the demolition of Towne, even before there is anything to replace it. “You won’t have the roof of the field house in the way anymore as you’re looking across campus towards the mountains,” Garvey said. “It’ll be an interesting new view.”
Megan Lin contributed reporting.
