A developer has pitched plans to build hundreds of rental units in a hilltop campus in White River Junction.  

The 240-apartment complex would rise on a wooded, 24.6-acre site above Sykes Mountain Avenue, a short drive from the Connecticut River and Lebanon.  

Sketch plans filed with town officials show a 48-unit building and a 72-space parking lot just off Sykes Mountain Avenue, with a gatehouse and driveway leading up the hill to a clubhouse building and two 4-story, 96-unit blocks, plus 291 parking spaces.  

Town Planning Commission members asked the development team to remove the gatehouse, and urged the team to design the two main, hilltop apartment buildings with the knowledge that they would be seen from many parts of town.  

Market Square Architects is designing the project; Engineering Ventures is the project engineer.  

The Valley News reports the development team is made up of area developer Earl Simpson and Venezuelan father-son team Irwin Perret Sr. and Irwin Perret Jr. The Perrets operate the Peering Group, a development firm that’s largely been active in the Caribbean over the last 70 years, but the family has relatives in the Upper Valley, according to minutes of the Planning Commission meeting. 

The intense housing and labor shortages in the Lebanon area, along with demand for off-campus housing from Dartmouth students, has drawn developers from as far as Boston looking to add housing aimed at locals and those moving to the area to work at Dartmouth College or Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.