As students traipse around Grounds these days, construction workers, Caterpillar machines and piles of dirt have become a familiar sight. This construction stems from the University Master Plan, which will change the face of Grounds over the next few years.
University Landscape Architect Mary Hughes described the University Master Plan as "a long-range plan for how the University will grow and develop its physical facilities."
Hughes said that the University hired the Baltimore-based consulting firm of Ayers Saint Gross to draw up the original plan, and officials in the Office of the University Architect update the plan on a continual basis. The plan was last updated in 1999 and as a result, several visible, high-profile projects are now underway.
Woody House
The first project scheduled to be completed as part of the Master Plan is Woody House, the new Alderman Road residence. Construction on Woody House began early in the summer of 1999.
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Originally, the dorm was scheduled for completion by early August, in time for the incoming first years, but because there was a heavy workload as the result of simultaneous construction projects, the production of Woody House was delayed temporarily, said Construction Services Manager Sack Johannesmeyer.
Johannesmeyer said the new building is now predicted to be completed by early November.
As a result of the delay, 134 first year students are housed in triples in other Alderman Road residences, while a crew finishes construction.
Woody House cost about $4.5 million to build. The money comes from the University's auxiliary funds, which came from Capital Campaign funds and bonds the University posts, Johannesmeyer said.
"For a revenue-generating facility like a dorm, the University can pick up bonds for construction and use the revenue to pay off the bonds," he said.
Peabody Hall
The next large undertaking for the University will be the renovation of Peabody Hall, which will be the new home for the Admissions Office.
Johannesmeyer said Peabody Hall requires renovations such as utility upgrades, before the Admissions Office can move into it.
The cost to renovate Peabody Hall will be $5 million. The University is hoping the state will foot the bill, University Architect Samuel A. "Pete" Anderson said.
Once the Admissions Office moves from its current spot in Miller Hall to Peabody Hall, Miller Hall will be demolished to make room for a Special Collections Library, Hughes said.
The construction visible in front of Peabody Hall is the beginning stage of those renovations, and Johannesmeyer said he believes the renovations to Peabody and the demolition of Miller will take this entire academic year.
This is not the first facelift for Miller Hall, however.
Jeanne Hammer, director of development for Alderman Library, said the original Miller Hall was a one-story chemistry facility that a student burned down in 1917 because he wanted to steal platinum from the lab.
"They knew he had stolen the platinum because it wouldn't have burned in the fire and it was gone afterwards," Hammer said.
Alexander "Sandy" Gilliam Jr., secretary to the Board of Visitors, said when he was a student at the University in the 1950s, Miller Hall was rebuilt with two floors and used as a biology building until Gilmer Hall was erected in 1963.
Although it has been served for a number of uses in the past, Hammer said the Miller Hall facility is meeting its final demise because it is deteriorating and would be difficult to incorporate into a new library structure.
"It would be hard to put in elevators and handicapped access ramps into it," Hammer said.
She added that the library administrators wanted the new Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature and Culture and the Albert H. Small Special Collections Library to be within a 10-minute walk from Grounds because "people who use the Special Collections Library will also use Alderman Library."
Other sites that were considered for the new library included the north end of Madison Bowl, next to Phi Kappa Psi and the side of Carr's Hill.
The building, scheduled to be completed in 2003, will serve as a home to the rare books and archives that are now on the second floor of Alderman Library.
Clark Hall
Also scheduled for completion in 2003 are the renovations to the Engineering-Sciences Library in Clark Hall.
The renovations to Clark Hall, managed by the same contracting firm that constructed Scott Stadium, Barton Mallow, will include additional office and classroom space for the environmental sciences department, said Kenneth Smith, director of Facility Planning and Construction.
Johannesmeyer said most construction projects at the University are awarded to the lowest bidder, but the University's architects and engineers are given more freedom on certain larger projects, including the Clark Hall project, because it is a high priority.
New language house
Also in the works is another new residence hall. Construction on an Asian and Middle Eastern Language residence on Monroe Lane, behind Cabell Hall, will begin in early 2001 and is scheduled for completion by the start of the 2002 school year, Johannesmeyer said.
According to the East Asian Studies department Web site, the five-story residence hall will have room for 40 students in the Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department.
Johannesmeyer said the University will not begin advertising for a contractor for the residence house until January 2001.
Grounds Walk
The Master Plan does not forget to tie all these new buildings together. The term Grounds Walk describes a series of projects designed to give students and community members access to outlying parts of Grounds in a safe and convenient way.
The design will provide pedestrians and bikers a "corridor to connect North Grounds to Central and West Grounds," Hughes said.
The Grounds Walk will include a bridge over Emmet Street to connect the practice fields near University Hall to the woods behind Lambeth Field on the northwest area of Grounds and to a lighted pathway in back of the Lambeth Colonnades, Hughes said.
She said the first phase of the Grounds Walk, the bridge over Emmet Street, will cost about $3.4 million and is scheduled to start by summer 2001.
While the Walk is designed to make travelling around Grounds safer, Hughes said the plans were not formed in response to any particular incident in the past.
She said she is hopeful that "it will be one means of discouraging people from using the railroad tracks" under Beta Bridge, the site of several assaults.
Arts facilities expansion
Another integral part of the updated University Master Plan is a new Arts Complex. These buildings will be built on Carr's Hill.
The first phase will include a new studio-arts building located off the north end of the School of Architecture.
"Right now that is a wooded slope and parking lot, but it is fully funded and should be built in the next three years or so," Hughes said. "It is now in the design phase."
She said other parts of the complex will include a performing arts building with a recital hall and theater, a new fine arts library which will include the music library, as well as expanded facilities for both the School of Architecture and the Drama Department. The art program also will have a new museum to replace Bayly Art Museum as the public art museum. Bayly Art Museum will be used as a more academic museum facility.
Hughes said Fayerweather Hall, which is now split between the Art History and Studio Art departments, will be renovated as Studio Art will move into its own building.
Students still eat at O-Hill
Since the plan to renovate Observatory Hill was terminated, the University is considering demolishing Observatory Hill Dining Hall and building a new, larger facility, Hughes said.
"The plan before was to add onto the existing facility, but the bids that came in were too high," Hughes said.
Johannesmeyer said the bids that came in to renovate O-Hill were about 20 percent higher than the University had hoped, and the cost of erecting a new building cost only 30 percent more than the anticipated renovation bids.
"We were hoping to see about $8.3 million bids and the lowest bid was about $11.3 million," Johannesmeyer said.
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