Work is already under way on the busiest summer construction season in Elon University history. Read this note for full details about the projects...
Fifteen major projects are planned for the main Elon campus and the new School of Law campus in downtown Greensboro. The projects include new academic facilities, student residences, recreation facilities and expanded campus parking. Total construction cost is about $65 million.
The $10 million Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center is scheduled for completion July 15. The three-story, 60,000-square-foot facility will be the new home of Elon’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. Koury Business Center will include the LaRose Digital Theater, which will be wired for video conferencing and multimedia presentations; the LabCorp Suite for Executive Education; the William Garrard Reed Finance Center with real-time data from global financial markets; the James B. and Anne Ellington Powell Lobby; and the Wallace L. Chandler Fountain and Plaza. The center will also feature computer labs, research spaces, and classrooms and breakout rooms designed to enhance group discussions and activities. Students in all majors will make use of the new academic facilities provided by this dramatic new addition to the campus.
The Koury Business Center will anchor a new academic quad that links the center of campus with the Danieley Center residential complex. As construction nears completion on Koury Business Center, work will begin on three additional buildings of this new quad. A two-story, 24,000-square-foot dining hall will be built adjacent to Chandler Fountain and Plaza. Two new single-bedroom apartment-style buildings will be built on the east side of Koury Business Center. These three-story, 34,000-square-foot residence halls will provide a total of 154 beds. The dining center and residence halls will be completed for the fall 2007 semester.
The Elon University School of Law will open its new home in the H. Michael Weaver Building at the corner of West Friendly Avenue and North Greene Street in downtown Greensboro in early June. The building, which was formerly the Greensboro Central Public Library Building, is undergoing a $6 million renovation designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott, assisted by J. Hyatt Hammond Associates of Greensboro. The 84,000-square-foot showcase for legal education includes a courtroom that will also serve as the home of the North Carolina Business Court, a two-floor library and reading room, numerous classrooms, seminar rooms and computer labs, faculty offices and a student commons area with a lounge and coffee bar. The building’s annex will house the offices of the Business Court.
Work is proceeding rapidly on the first five buildings of The Oaks, a 500-bed student residence complex that replaces Jordan Center along Williamson Avenue, opposite Koury Center and the Center for the Arts. The complex will include six residence hall buildings plus a commons building. The phase I buildings, which will be ready for occupancy Aug. 22, will house 348 students. The final two buildings will be available Feb. 1, 2007, and will house 168 students.
Groundbreaking ceremonies were held April 18 for the fourth and fifth pavilions of the Academic Village. The William Henry Belk Pavilion will house Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and the Luvene Holmes and Royall H. Spence Jr. Pavilion will house the philosophy and religious studies departments. Both pavilions are scheduled to be completed in May 2007. They are being built in the same architectural design of the existing three pavilions of the Academic Village.
Elon West, formerly the headquarters for Elon’s Physical Plant and Construction departments on Haggard Avenue, is being renovated into a new home for the art department. The facility will include classrooms, a ceramics studio, a painting studio, a digital art studio and photo lab. The building will also include storage for library collections as well as music faculty offices. Work on the building will be completed in time for fall semester.
The departure of the art department from the Center for the Arts will create new space for three new dance studios and a theatre design studio. The Center for the Arts renovation will be completed in time for fall semester.
The two existing dance studios in Koury Center will move to the Center for the Arts, allowing for a doubling of the size of Stewart Fitness Center. This renovation of Koury Center will be completed in time for fall semester.
With the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business moving to the Koury Business Center, Long building will be renovated into a new home for the psychology department, which is currently located in Alamance Building. Long will also provide additional faculty office space at the center of campus. This renovation of Long will be completed in time for fall semester.
West of Elon’s softball field on Kerr Avenue will be a new 58-space parking lot. In addition, a larger 288-space parking lot will be added to Danieley Center, expanding the lot that was constructed this year behind Daniel Commons building. Also, the tram road leading from McMichael Science Center’s parking lot to Danieley Center will be widened and upgraded. Both parking lots and the road will be completed in time for fall semester.