Summer is the season of construction at Emory, and summer 2003 will be no different, with several projects ongoing and a couple high-profile jobs due for completion. Following is a description of projects that stand to have the most impact on the Emory community.

Candler Library
The construction fencing has vanished from one side of Candler Library, and the other side is soon to follow, as the $17.6 million renovation of one of Emory’s signature buildings is almost finished. Project manager Terry Bozeman said external work is 85–90 percent completed; what remains is mostly landscaping and cosmetic work, such as reinstalling handrails and light poles, hanging the bronze door entrances, and repainting the gold leaf in the marble etching of the building’s name.

Inside, Bozeman said Candler is on schedule to be ready for occupancy by mid- to late July, and it will be worth the wait.

“The reading room is gorgeous,” he said, referring to the resurrection of Candler’s two-floor central space that will serve as both study area and collections housing. “All the plaster work is complete, and it’s a beautiful space. It’s hard to believe that someone in the ’50s decided to divide that room up horizontally.”

Though the room’s decorations, from the furniture to the chandeliers, will be reproductions of period pieces, the 2003 version also will feature task-lighting and network connections at tables and workspaces, Bozeman said.

In fact, incorporating the old into the new for Candler Library could help land the building LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification; by reusing some of the 130 tons of marble excavated during the renovation, Bozeman said, Emory earns LEED points for resource reuse. He said he is “very confident” the building will be certified.

Fishburne Drive
*Project manager Al Herzog and his colleagues from Facilities Management will
hold a town hall meeting on Thursday, May 22, from 4-5 p.m. in 208 White Hall to explain and answer questions about the rerouting of Fishburne Drive.

Just south of Candler, one of Emory’s busiest interior arteries will be rerouted as the University lays groundwork for the expansion of Goizueta Business School, due to break ground next spring. Beginning shortly after Commencement—an exact starting date was unavailable as FM nailed down a contractor last week—a portion of the road will be moved north so that Fishburne will run between Woodruff Library and the Rich Building.

Project manager Al Herzog said there will be no interruption of access to the Fishburne Parking Deck or to the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts’ ticket window turnaround. At the beginning of the project, as crews clear out the path between the library and Rich, access to Fishburne will remain as it is now.

However after the new route is driveable, access to Fishburne at the northeast end (near Asbury Circle) will be closed, and traffic from Clifton Road bound for the Fishburne deck will have to make a longer trip around Rich.

“We will maintain traffic along Fishburne throughout the project,” Herzog said. “That may mean some weekend work or reducing traffic down to one lane, but we will not take the eastern roadway out of service until the new one is available. We won’t make life miserable for everyone.”

The new Fishburne Drive will feature bus pulloffs in front of Hopkins Hall, the business school and at the intersection with the Mizell Bridge. The intersection of Fishburne and Asbury Circle will be a three-way stop, and Herzog said the access gate currently located in front of Cox Hall will be moved to the Fishburne/Asbury intersection.

Though Fishburne will be open when students return for fall semester, Herzog said there may remain one final overlay of driving surface, as well as landscaping. Finishing touches on the enlarged greenspace sited on Fishburne’s current route will not be made, however, until after the Goizueta expansion is completed in summer 2005.

Herzog said there will be at least one weekend, probably in late summer, when electricity to the business school will be cut off; FM is working with the school to coordinate this outage. He and the project team will hold an open, town hall-style meeting on May 22 from 4–5 p.m. in 208 White Hall to answer questions from the community about the Fishburne project.

FM is taking the opportunity to make environmental improvements to the vicinity of the project, Herzog said. Two oil-water separators will be installed at the northwest and southwest corners of Rich to clean stormwater drainage from higher elevations (water draining from the Fishburne deck often carries oil and other auto-related fluids). As a result, the water draining into Baker Woodlands “will be cleaner than it’s ever been,” Herzog said.

Woodruff Library
Repairs to the facing of the Woodruff stack tower will be finished in October, said Bozeman, estimating that abatement of the exterior’s lead-based paint is 80 percent complete. Steel rebar inside the building’s concrete facing was corroding, he said, and that corrosion was causing chunks of concrete to come loose and fall off (which is why the University installed safety fencing around the building’s perimeter).

After abatement is completed, Bozeman said, a “corrosive inhibitor” will be applied to the facing, followed by a concrete coating, and then finally a special “paint” with elastic properties that allow it to expand and contract.

The biggest complaints about this project from staff and students in the library have been odor and noise. The chemical used during abatement has a strong odor but is harmless, Bozeman said, and he will coordinate with library staff to minimize noise disruptions during later stages of the project.

Herzog is project manager for the installation of compact shelving on Woodruff’s fourth floor, which is due to begin immediately. The project, which necessitated moving all the fourth-floor holdings to the Materiel Center at 1762 Clifton, will affect only that floor, Herzog said, though one of the stack tower’s elevators may be reserved for contractor use. This project is scheduled for completion in early spring 2004.

Winship Cancer Institute
Four floors of the new, $75.7 million home for the Winship Cancer Institute will open on July 7, according to project manager Steve Lange. The plaza, entry, clinic and one lab level all will be ready for occupancy; phase II of the building’s completion will follow in September, with two more lab floors and the “tunnel” level ready for move-in. Uppergate Drive will reopen just before the phase I opening in July.

Pediatrics Building
Construction began in late April on a new, 153,000-square-foot pediatrics facility to be located on Ridgewood Drive.

Between this project, the extension of the shuttle road from Clairmont Campus, and
Dekalb County’s ongoing water main installation, the Ridgewood/Uppergate/
Haygood Drive area will be quite congested.

A patients’ parking lot is being maintained next to the pediatrics facility construction site, with traffic being rerouted from the Ridgewood/Haygood intersection southeast along Haygood to the N. Decatur Road intersection with Ridgewood.

The stretch of Ridgewood between Haygood and Uppergate has been closed permanently, Lange said, as the new pediatrics facility (scheduled for completion in July 2004) will sit directly on top of that route.