STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Wagner College broke ground yesterday for a dormitory — its first in 40 years — embarking officially on what the college president called a new era of “construction and enhancement” for the 125-year-old Grymes Hill school.

The $24 million, 200-bed residence hall will be devoted to academic seniors and will rise on the college’s former Campus Road baseball field, roughly between the still standing left and center fields.

In three years’ time, another academic building — to house schools of business, education and nursing — will follow, on a site across the street from the new dorm.

But the school’s capital expansion has not come without some growing pains on the bucolic hilltop campus with a backdrop of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which serves 1,900 undergraduates and 300 graduate students.

The new dormitory pushed the baseball team off its charming field to the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, and some Campus Road homeowners have fretted about the expanding college.

David Nicholson, an assistant track coach who was supervising some students at Wagner’s football and track field yesterday, said there is some concern among coaches that the cost to use the big ballpark, home of the Staten Island Yankees, will mean cutbacks in other sports programs.

‘OUT OF THE WAY’

“It’s a nice ballpark, but it’s expensive and it’s really out of the way to go over there. They have to get vans for the guys and the school has to pay to maintain the field,” he said. “It’s kind of not fair to the [baseball] guys, but at the same time, we need the dorms.”

Jocelyn Ford, a senior and member of the track team, said her only regret is that she will miss out on the new senior residence hall, slated to open in the fall of 2009.

“I think it’s great,” she said of the project. “The dorms now are really overcrowded. It’s tiny space and we are doubling and tripling up.”

“Our dorms are great but they are old,” student government president Morgan Scott said after helping push one of the groundbreaking shovels into the dirt. “I think [the students] are really excited to have the opportunity to have a new, modern dorm.”

The crush of on-campus living is fueled mostly by out-of-state students, but also by a growing number of Islanders who want to live on campus for the full college experience, explained Lee Manchester, a college spokesman.

Nearly 80 percent of undergraduates today live in the three Wagner dorms, Harbor View, Parker Towers and Guild halls, which contain about 1,350 beds and were built long before any of the current students were born.

The new residence hall will not only offer apartments and suites with kitchens, but a conference room, and a career development and alumni office to help seniors network and make connections before graduation.

“This will be a remarkable tool for us in terms of providing resources for seniors,” Wagner College president Richard Guarasci said of the new dormitory. “It’s not just bricks and mortar but an educational program.”

Gilbane Building Co., which has constructed dorms for Princeton and Rutgers universities, is the construction manager for the Wagner project.

To assuage neighbors’ concerns, Guarasci said the college turned the four-story building more inward, away from homes on Campus Road.

TO BE LANDSCAPED

He said the site also will be landscaped with hedges and underbrush to protect homeowners’ privacy. Dorm room windows in the fully ventilated building will be sealed to prevent loud music or noises from drifting into nearby homes, he added.

“We are very mindful of making this an enhancement of the neighborhood,” he added.

One longtime neighbor grew up in her home on Campus Road and graduated from Wagner when it was still what she described yesterday as “quiet and small.”

She said the school had been a good neighbor over the years but she worries the latest expansion will tip the scales.

“The traffic, lack of privacy — I know what a dorm is like,” explained the woman, who declined to use her name. “I am concerned and they have not eased my fears.”

Karen O’Shea covers real estate news for the Advance. She may be reached at oshea@siadvance.com.