Scaffolding blanketed the Medford campus this summer, as construction projects large and small transformed the hill.
Sophia Gordon Hall, the new dormitory on Talbot Avenue, received a full building permit at the beginning of the summer, and is now under construction. The final beam was installed on the building's future East wing last week.
According to Director of Construction Management Mitch Bodnarchuk, the Sophia Gordon Hall project is "on budget and on schedule."
The new music building, adjacent to the Aidekman Arts Center and across Talbot Avenue from Sophia Gordon Hall, also began construction over the summer. The cement foundation has already been installed, and "the steel is scheduled to go up on the music building by the end of September," Vice President of Operations John Roberto said.
The parking lot behind the Cohen Auditorium in the Aidekman Arts Center is now a staging area for construction materials and machinery and the construction site office. The lot is expected to be available for parking by Dec. 2006, the new music building's planned completion date.
The reconstructed lot will be half the size of the old one, Roberto said.
To compensate for the lost spaces, a one-level parking garage is under construction on the former site of the South Hall tennis and basketball courts. The courts have already been taken down and the ground leveled to begin construction of the garage, which will provide 135 parking spaces.
Once the garage is built, Bodnarchuk said, "We are going to build tennis and basketball courts atop the garage, similar to the ones that were there in the past."
The garage is expected to be completed in the Spring 2006 semester. Until then the campus is without outdoor basketball courts.
Over the summer, an e-mail was sent to undergraduates informing them of the decreased parking availability.
Restoration and construction work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy was nearly complete in time for new student orientation Monday. Construction workers were paid overtime this past weekend to work on the finishing touches in the interior areas where the orientation was held. Work began on the project in late May.
Another week's worth of work is left on the interior of Fletcher's Ginn Library. Chairs and tables have yet to be unwrapped, and some book stacks need to be relocated.
The Ginn circulation and reserve desk was relocated from the Fletcher School basement to a more accessible location inside an entrance above the Professors Row tennis courts, across the street from Gifford House.
The scaffolding on the north and west sides of the Fletcher School will remain until December of this year to replace windows and masonry. "There were problems with the watertight integrity," Roberto said.
According to Jay Herlihy, the Director of Administration and Finance at the Fletcher School said material costs for the construction projects were in line with estimates.
Exterior improvements were also made on the roof and walls of West Hall and the Campus Center.
