ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997 TAG: 9704070156
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE THE ROANOKE TIMES
The new indoor track is installed at Rector Field House, and with a few warm days in a row the outdoor track at the new track and soccer complex will be finished.
What more could the athletic student want? Keep an eye on Washington Street and West Campus Drive, Virginia Tech's next campus construction site. The university's next chore for the bulldozers is a multimillion-dollar health and fitness center - complete with indoor pool, elevated track and, it is hoped, enough cardiovascular exercise machines to avoid peak-hour lines.
"It should not be long at all before excavations start," said Bill Campion, who runs the university's recreation programs.
Tech's building boom - with a price tag of $150 million - continues. In addition, Tech officials recently drew up their latest wish list of $445 million worth of new projects they'd like to see funded by 2004.
The proposed capital projects, a handful of which could become funding requests to the General Assembly next year, include planning money for an alumni center and a chemistry/physics class building to replace crowded, loud and aging laboratories.
The many construction projects stem from state space guidelines for universities and Virginia Tech's notable deficit in that area, said Ray Smoot, the school's vice president for finance. Even with 7 million square feet of room, the school is short 153,000 square feet for academic purposes and 15,400 for research.
"The fact is, Virginia Tech never caught up with space" from the rapid rise in both the number of students and amount of research conducted at Tech in the 1960s and 1970s, Smoot said.
To pay for all this construction, the school is casting a wide net. Proceeds from football bowl appearances are paying for new athletic department facilities such as the addition to Jamerson Athletic Center. Private funds raised through Virginia Tech's ongoing capital campaign are going toward projects such as the high-profile skybridge/advanced communications and technology center that will span The Mall. State funds are being eyed as well.
Some projects, such as the skybridge, have received lots of media attention. Others are less high profile. Here are the details on some of those:
Groundbreaking should be any day on the student health and fitness center, with completion expected in fall 1998. It will include a recreational pool, weight room, cardiovascular machines and track. Students have been paying an additional $28 this school year for the project as part of their $631 mandatory comprehensive fee. Next year $28 of the fee again
will go to the building, but the following year the amount will jump to an estimated $111, said budget director Dwight Shelton.
Faculty and staff are expected to be able to use the center, but will pay a fee, Campion said.
Student health services will move into a separate wing of the center from its current location at Henderson Hall.
At the popular Weight Club in University Mall - a nonprofit operation once located on campus - the prospect of new competition is not daunting, according to one manager. The major issue seems to be whether on-campus students will decamp. But, said Christie Gregg, a club manager: "We don't have a whole lot of on-campus students.
"The majority are off-campus, or people who live in the area. A lot of people come here to get away from campus," she said.
Students will pick their way past new construction in the dormitory district as construction of two residence halls gets under way. The new dorms will help form a new quad next to Payne Hall and continue the building on old "Pritchard Prairie," a fast-dwindling tract that once doubled as a Frisbee park and soccer field.
These new dorms, which will house 440 students on campus, add a few new beds to the campus stock. The construction of Payne Hall did not completely balance out the loss of beds from the conversion of Major Williams Hall on the Upper Quad from dormitory to office space. The swap cost the campus 68 beds, according to Ed Spencer, who heads Tech's dining and residence hall programs. The two new dorms will mean a net gain of 81 beds for the campus.
It won't be long before work starts on the $16.8 million dorms, slated for completion by the fall 1998, officials said.
"Pritchard Prairie" will keep its basketball court, Spencer said. However, the sand volleyball courts will have to move.
Branch & Associates of Roanoke, the same company that built Payne Hall and is constructing the engineering building, won the dorm contract with a low bid in March of $12.86 million for construction, Spencer said. The new dorms will be Hokie stone and "very similar in appearance and design to Payne," he said.
A third new residence hall is on the horizon. The expected $10 million structure goes out to bid in late fall, Smoot said. That means it should be open in August 1999. This dorm, with 256 beds, will be built between the women's soccer field and the parking lot in front of Cochrane Hall. Like the other two dorms, it will be part of the so-called "Upper Quad conversion" that is transforming some of the university's oldest dormitories into office space for faculty and staff and thus creating the need for more dorms.
Student fees pay for the dorms, which are financed with revenue bonds.
Students and faculty alike can look forward to new academic space. There's the much-discussed $25 million advanced communications and technology building. The university is still searching for $5 million to $7 million for this project, depending on whom you ask. The state has contributed $12.5 million to the project, which will be highlighted by a window-lined bridge spanning the campus mall. The bridge will be a reading room and computer study area.
The large engineering building with its stone facade, which completes the Prices Fork Road-side series of big block buildings, will be finished in June. December should see completion of the architecture building going underground behind Burruss Hall.
Another project that affects both students and townspeople is the reopening of Spring Road, which runs from Southgate Drive into the heart of the campus. The road's reconstruction, which is actually a state highway project, should get under way by late spring or summer and be completed in two to three months, according to university officials. The road will be realigned to intersect with Tech Center Drive, which leads into the Corporate Research Center.
Now the university turns its attention to plans for an item high on its wish list. A $25 million chemistry/physics building has been proposed for construction near Davidson Hall off West Campus Drive to replace aging labs and facilities there.
"Davidson is 65 years old," Smoot said. "Chemistry's changed a lot in 65 years."
Current labs are overcrowded to the point that different classes sometimes try to operate in the same lab, chemistry professors said.
Other projects that are anticipated include:
$4 million to convert the back portion of Burruss Hall to architecture space. Eventually, a new building would house the administrative offices currently occupying that portion of Burruss, Smoot said.
Finally, down at No. 9 on its 25-item wish list, Tech includes permission to spend $709,000 to begin planning an alumni center. The Alumni Association's board of directors thinks the school needs an on-campus home for alumni, said Tom Tillar, who directs the association.
The idea is to build an alumni center with a university museum, dining and reception areas, offices and meeting rooms. It could be as large as the Donaldson-Brown Hotel and Conference Center. Sites that have been floated include the parking lot across from Squires Student Center; the former Blacksburg High School across from Donaldson-Brown, which houses architecture programs; or a couple of sites near the Duck Pond.
"In that area, there is probably more flexibility than this central campus area," Tillar said.
Those big classes of returning alumni who could use the alumni center are the very folks who launched Tech's growth - growth that is still spurring the school's building boom.
LENGTH: Long : 157 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. The $1.89 million trackby CNBand soccer complex is nearing completion, along with the women's
softball field nearby on the right (not in view). The English Field
press box (left, above orange seats) was recently completed. 2. From
his 4th floor vantage point in Cowgill Hall, a student observes the
contruction of the new classrooms for the College of Architecture
and Urban Studies, built under the Cowgill Hall plaza. 3. The new
College of Engineering building housing classrooms and labs is under
contruction next to Whittemore Hall and is scheduled to be completed
in June (ran on NRV-1) color. Graphic. VIRGINIA TECH. 1. The College
of Architecture class building, scheduled to be completed in
December, is being built under the Cowgill Hall plaza and will
feature four glass pyramids to help illuminate the space. color. 2.
The 42,000-sq.ft. space is scheduled to be completed in December.
Color map. Chart by RT. KEYWORDS: MGR