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November 1, 2004
Town halls give sneak peek of major capital projects

BY Michael Terrazas

Campus planners gave a preview of major capital projects in store for the Emory campus at a series of three town hall meetings held last week, Oct. 26 and 27, in 206 White Hall.

The events served as an update for the ongoing Campus Master Plan Update 2004 (CPU4) project. The update originally was scheduled for completion in November, but Director of Campus Planning Jen Fabrick said some rethinking caused the timeline to be reconsidered.

“Last month many people came to the gross realization that the Campus Master Plan can’t exist on its own,” Fabrick said, adding that the plan must be synthesized with other University planning projects such as the strategic plan and the Clifton Corridor transit study.

But there was still plenty of information to be covered in the town halls. Fabrick and David Kalin, CPU4 project manager, walked their audiences through the master plan’s guiding principles and then gave overviews of the major projects scheduled to begin in the next few years. These included:

• Emory Village improvements. Construction on the traffic roundabout in the village intersection is scheduled to begin in 2006, and Kalin shared an interesting artifact discovered in a search of University archives: a 1960 rendering of a planned roundabout in Emory Village almost identical to the one currently in the works.

• New School of Medicine (SOM) building. Starting next summer, Emory will raze the Connector Building between the Anatomy and Physiology buildings in order to construct a new connector that will serve, remarkably, as the SOM’s first dedicated “home” facility in its history. The Anatomy and Physiology buildings will be renovated, and architecturally the new connector will mirror the classic “Emory look.”

• Candler School of Theology expansion. On a parallel track with the SOM facility is a new home for the Pitts Theology Library. The building will go up on the current Arkwright Road behind Bishops Hall and also will house the Center for Ethics. Phase II of the project involves renovations of the current Pitts Library and Bishops Hall.

• Sorority Lodge relocation. The current Sorority Lodges near the law school suffer from termite damage and will be razed, Fabrick said, to be replaced by a new complex on Fraternity Row. An interconnected group of nine townhouses (with 24 beds each) will begin construction next summer, to be completed in time for the 2006–07 year.

• Food service improvements. A number of new facilities are planned, including a café in the covered walkway outside White Hall; a renovation of Cox Hall food court; and a new facility inside the Goizueta Business School expansion. Also, construction on a lower-level café inside Woodruff Library will begin in December.

David Pugh, associate administrator for Emory Hospitals, explained the challenges facing Emory Hospital. Much of the facility dates back to the 1920s, and constrained hallways and patient rooms hinder the delivery of the latest patient-care technology, Pugh said. The hospital also needs to improve parking access for patients; those gathered in White Hall, he said, were just as close to the hospital as its nearest patient parking facility. “That’s just unacceptable,” Pugh said.

After the presentation, planners answered questions from the audience. For more information about CPU4, visit www.fm.emory.edu/campusplan.

 

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