Thursday, April 7, 2011 • The RIVERDALE REVIEW
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Neighbors discuss MC student center By BRENDAN McHUGH Waldo Avenue residents hope a new Manhattan College building will lead to a new Manhattan College attitude. During a presentation at Monday’s land use meeting of Community Board 8, college president Dr. Brennan O’Donnell and vice president for facilities management Robert Mahan continually referred to a master plan for the future of the campus, saying the college wants to be more hospitable to the neighborhood. The new building, which will be built as-of-right, is a four story student center that will encompass a fitness center, dining halls, meeting rooms, offices, and a bookstore and Starbucks, both which will be open to the community. The building, dubbed the Raymond W. Kelly Student Center, will be in the parking lot on the corner of Waldo Avenue and Manhattan College Parkway. O’Donnell said the new center “is a place we can educate [students] better, and a place the neighborhood will find to be an asset.” But to Waldo Avenue residents, Manhattan College should have been working on their neighborly image years ago. Angela Gotonis, a Waldo resident, said the block between Manhattan College and 238th Street is not just part of Waldo Avenue, but also part of the Manhattan College campus. Over the years, college students have vandalized buildings and harassed local residents. A new building, she’s afraid, may only worsen the problem. Most of the neighbors have safety concerns. A new building will only bring more students off the campus and onto Waldo Avenue. Richard Satterlee, vice president of student life, has a different idea. “This building is part of the solution to drinking.” By engaging students and giving them better space to work out, study, and participate in clubs and games, Satterlee believes students will be spend less time drinking and causing problems. O’Donnell said he has been working with residents of 3875 Waldo Avenue to address concerns neighbors have with the building, but residents further down the road want to be involved in a conversation about not only the new building, but also other concerns and problems they have. The hours of operation are not yet set, but it will not be a 24-hour facility. Mahan suspects the fitness center will operate until midnight or 1 a.m., the closing time of the fitness center currently on campus. Other amenities, like the Starbucks and meeting rooms, will most likely close earlier. The building itself will have two entrances—one at the corner of Waldo Avenue and Manhattan College Parkway, and another at the corner of 240th Street and Irwin Avenue. The only automobile access will be at 240th Street, where the dumpsters and loading dock will be. This area will be unseen from Waldo Avenue, as an 18-foot retaining wall blocks the view. One Waldo Avenue resident fears that students will gather outside the northern entrance late at night, and asked for some measure to be taken to ensure the noise is kept to a minimum. While the college said they do not have a security plan in
place for the new building, some level of security will be present in and around the building. The eastern wall of the building, facing the subway station and Gaelic Park, will be mostly glass. The Waldo Avenue wall will be mostly brick with a few small windows. The height of the building from Waldo Avenue is three stories. The parking garage the campus recently built on Broadway was built with the notion that one day this student center will take the place of the 130-space parking lot. The garage will be able to hold all cars displaced from the lot. The college says the building will be environmentally friendly with a green roof and solar panels to service part of the building’s electricity needs.
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