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May 8 , 2006
SOM building, freshman dorm top summer projects

BY michael terrazas

A healthy slate of nearly 20 capital projects is on the Campus Planning docket for summer 2006, but a small group of perhaps five will make themselves felt much more than others for faculty and staff working on campus.

In the heart of campus, two buildings will simultaneously rise up from the ground: the School of Medicine Administration and Education Building and the first residence-hall installment of a planned “freshman village” just north of the Dobbs Center. Work on the medical building, which will connect the renovated Anatomy and Physiology buildings, began last year and is expected to be finished by summer 2007.

The new freshman residence hall, also scheduled for a summer 2007 completion, is sited on the parking lot behind the Dobbs Center, and all parking was removed from the lot in early April.

Bill Chatfield, director of project management and construction, said the roadway between the two construction sites will be kept open all summer for Emory shuttles and pedestrians, though there may be occasional and brief disruptions to allow the movement of large construction equipment. The small access road behind McTyeire and Trimble halls will be used exclusively for construction vehicles.

In front of Emory Hospital, this summer will see the first of a two-phased project that will create a transportation hub for the University’s expanded shuttle system (due to be operational by the fall). Eventually, all of Woodruff Circle will be renovated with a new outlet to Clifton Road, but the initial phase this summer will see the installation of at least two bus shelters (outfitted with technology that will allow riders to track the location of shuttles and estimated time until pick-up) and a “softening” of the current Woodruff Circle outlet to Clifton: shorter curbs and wider angles, better enabling shuttles to turn left onto the busier road.

Project manager James Johnson said the current dozen or so parking spaces on Woodruff Circle will be removed; the road will still be open to vehicular traffic, he said, but vehicles will not be allowed to park or stop to make deliveries. Currently two shuttle routes travel through Woodruff Circle, but Laura Ray, associate vice president for transportation and parking, all 17 of the redesigned routes for the fall will be removed from the core of campus (near Cox Hall) and instead pass through this “shuttle nexus.”

Johnson said it’s not yet been determined how that will translate into size and number of shelters. After the initial work this summer to install at least two Emory shuttle shelters (along with another two MARTA shelters on Clifton) and modify the Clifton intersection, more extensive work to Woodruff Circle (which will, incidentally, turn the road into an actual circle) will begin in the fall.

On the soon-to-be-renamed Fraternity Row, the Sorority Lodge project will be completed in time for fall semester, and utility work will necessitate the closing of Fraternity Row for a few days following Commencement, Chatfield said. “The impact [of the Sorority Lodge project] will be lessening throughout the summer because more and more of the activity will be interior finishes,” he said. “As we get totally inside the building, there will be much less traffic from that construction site and less interruption.”

Also, as reported in the May 1 Emory Report, Cox Hall and the fifth floor of Woodruff Library will close in late May. The Cox Hall food court is being completely redone and is scheduled to reopen in mid-August, while Woodruff is installing compact movable shelving on its fifth floor with an expected completion date in January 2007.

Other ongoing summer projects include:
• Renovations to the Materiel Center to accommodate Development and University Relations and Faculty-Staff Assistance Program functions.
• Creation of surface parking lot on Protestant Radio site on Clifton.
• Resurfacing of exterior tennis courts at P.E. Center.
• Drainage-improvement project at Candler Field.
• Renovation of 1627 and 1655 N. Decatur houses, to be occupied by Emory College.
• Renovation of transportation offices in Clairmont Campus Parking Deck.
• Construction of pedestrian bridge in Lullwater across South Fork Peachtree Creek.
• Demolition of houses along Gatewood Road related to land swap with Ronald McDonald House.
• Resurfacing of Starvine Way.
• Conversion of classroom space to offices in N. Decatur Building.
For more information on capital projects, visit www.fm.emory.edu/statreps.shtml.

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