NORWALK, Conn. – Architects will begin working within the next two months to design a pedestrian bridge over Richards Avenue to provide Norwalk Community College students a safe route to cross the street, NCC President David Levinson said Wednesday.
The bridge is part of Phase III of a master plan created more than a decade ago, according to The Voice, NCC’s student publication. Levinson said the state has given NCC $36 million to enact the changes, which include making the Pepsico Theater a “first-class performing arts space” and turning the West Campus cafeteria into a student union-type facility.
The pedestrian bridge is the next step in NCC’s development, Levinson said.
“We are pretty much landlocked and parking is always a challenge here,” Levinson said. “The architects are already hired, Mitchell/Giurgola, are going through a competitive bidding process and are the same ones that designed our science and health building and also the redevelopment of that part of our West Campus. They’re going to be here in a few weeks to start the design for that.”
It would be a two- or three-year process, he said.
“The costs are all over the place,” Levinson said. “One (estimate) was about $2 million would be the least expensive and then the issue is it’s got to be American Disabilities Act, ADA compliant. So the original thought of the bridge here was to go from the second floor of the library to the Center for Information Technology. I don’t think that’s going to be, aesthetically, be really too nice, so I’m not sure (about)t other design options, but we should know when the architects come in the next two months.”
Dandre Chery, writing in The Voice last October, said that instead of building a bridge the idea of closing Richards Avenue to unite the East and West campuses was being discussed.
Levinson mentioned that idea.
“Creating a safe passage is really important to me,” he said. “The bridge, part of the issue of the bridge and some of the concerns I have received on campus, is ‘If you build a bridge will students really use the bridge?’ I don’t know. The other thought, ideally, but would never work, would be whether we’d close off that part of Richards and truly unite the two campuses into one. I don’t think the neighbors would necessarily appreciate that.”
Other than the focus on the bridge, not much is set in stone.
“The architects are going to do an assessment on all of these projects,” Levinson said. “What will be challenging is how far will the $36 million go? It sounds like a lot but it really isn’t. In bidding for the project they did a phenomenal schematic of a student union building. We’ll see how much that costs, but what we want to do is get a sense of all these projects. We’ll see what the funds are and then they’ll make some decisions and perhaps do some private fundraising around that.”
Architects will go to Sacred Heart University and look at the new student union center there, Levinson said.
There’s no timetable on the theater either, he said.
“We had a firm a few years ago and they did an assessment, Levinson said. “They said you could do $800,000 or $8 million, depending on what you want to do, so we’ll see. We’ll make it a first class performing arts space. I think it will be really neat, and utilize that, have more plays and more productions going on.”
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