Gettysburg College is a private national four-year liberal arts college founded in 1832 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It is adjacent to the famous battlefield and has about 2,600 students from 40 states and 35 countries. BL Companies provided design services for the Bream Wright Hauser Athletic Facility Renovation and Expansion. The Center is a 50,000 square foot addition to the existing athletic facility and contains a natatorium, fitness center, climbing tower and locker facilities. The design included ADA compliant ramps and entrances, sidewalks, a sunbathing terrace, landscape plantings and all site fixtures. The project was designed to meet LEED silver certification standards.
As part of the project, the College required a new parking lot to replace space lost with the building addition. The design features a stormwater management system that minimizes stormwater run-off and maximize stormwater filtering and infiltration into subsurface soils. This was essential to the design due to periodic downstream flooding of Stevens Run during heavy precipitation events. Design parameters also included reducing the heat island effect of asphalt surfaces, buffering and softening the impact of the new parking on the surrounding campus, and obtaining land development permits from the Borough of Gettysburg, PA. BL Companies utilized locally available materials, native plant species, xeriscape landscape design concepts to forego the use of irrigation and site fixtures that contributed to utilizing alternative transportation.
