With the start of fall semester just over six weeks away, the campus is buzzing with builders doing new construction and renovation.
The biggest construction news on campus for summer 2016 is the continued progress on new facilities for the School of Communications. The building timetable was adjusted this spring because of weather delays, so Dwight C. Schar Hall and Steers Pavilion are now scheduled for completion by late September or early October, with faculty offices, classrooms, labs and other new facilities in use during the second half of fall semester.
Schar Hall includes the 230-seat Turner Theatre, a media innovation lab, additional classrooms and communications lab spaces, the dean’s suite, conference rooms, and faculty offices and student engagement spaces.
Schar Hall will be connected to the existing McEwen Building through the two-story Snow Family Grand Atrium. The atrium will include a large video screen and will open onto Citrone Plaza, a welcoming pedestrian space on Williamson Avenue in downtown Elon.
McEwen Building is undergoing an extensive renovation this summer and will reopen in time for the start of the academic year. The two main-floor classrooms will remain in their current use until fall break, when they will be repurposed as a newsroom hub for Elon’s converged student media organizations. The communications equipment space is being enlarged to accommodate the growing inventory of video and audio resources.
In the McEwen basement are renovated and expanded video edit bays, a new sound studio and space for Elon’s relocated WSOE Radio studios.
Residential facilities are being expanded this fall with the opening of Park Place at Elon, a four-story apartment building on West Haggard Avenue built by a private developer in partnership with the university. The main floor will be outfitted for small retail businesses serving the campus community, with the upper three floors housing about 129 juniors and seniors.
In the Historic Neighborhood, Sloan Hall is being fully renovated with new windows, bathrooms, paint, carpet and air handling systems. The Sloan renovation is part of a multi-year plan to renovate and refurbish residential facilities at the center of campus.
Other projects on the summer construction schedule include enclosed breezeways in the Danieley Center residential neighborhood, a renovated School of Education Dean’s Suite in Mooney Building, refurbishment of the Elon University School of Law Cemala Commons, renovated facilities for the university’s business services offices, and new doorways at each floor’s entrance in Alamance Building. Several buildings on campus are also getting new furniture and paint as part of Elon’s annual renovation and renewal process.