Facilities management workers have spent the past week building a plywood wall around Thomas Jefferson's crowning architectural achievement.
The temporary fence marks the beginning of renovations that will include a new ramp to provide handicap access to the Rotunda from the Lawn side and repairs to leaks in the roof over offices in the portico.
Project Manager Mashal Afredi said the project has been a long time coming.
"Actual people who are in wheel chairs always comment" on the poor handicapped access to the Rotunda, Afredi said.
Afredi said she and others working on the project have taken care to ensure that the construction will not compromise the Rotunda's architectural and historical integrity.
"We probably would have had handicapped access years earlier if not for so many meetings" about preserving the building's original structure, she said.
Special steps aimed at retaining the building's historical value include matching materials to the Rotunda and demanding care in the work, Engineering and Design Manager John Davis said.
"[University Curator and Architect J. Murray Howard] has been extremely insistent that the historical integrity is not compromised in any way," Afredi said. "He was very persistent."
"We are trying to do everything as seamlessly as possible," she said.
But the quality comes with a price, she added.
"With this project, the independent costs are twice and three times the amount of a normal project," Afredi said.
The project, which is scheduled to be completed by fall convocation, is projected to cost $650,000 plus independent costs. Afredi would not comment on the independent costs' total.
After studying the Rotunda's structure last year, the Facilities Management office selected Martin and Horn Inc. as the general contractor, Davis said.
"We want to get it done as quickly as we can and Martin and Horn has a long history and a good track record at the University," Davis said.
In the meantime, "we appreciate students going that extra mile to get around us," he said.
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