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What’s happening with campus buildings?

Last year we opened the Shelby Science and Technology Center, which is now up to speed and offering the finest science classrooms, labs and enhanced research space. The Shelby Center is also ideal for small focused academic conferences and a couple of these were held over summer. Such meetings bring outside academics and researchers to campus where we can showcase the best of UAHuntsville.

In late September we will open the new intermodal facility opposite the University Fitness Center. This facility is aimed at encouraging more members of the community to get fitter by parking and walking or parking and riding (e.g. a bicycle or skate board, depending on your age). This building will also house our campus police force in a new, state-of-the-art station at the heart of campus, thus making their response times better.

We had originally intended to implement a campus bus service to help students get around campus and across Sparkman Drive to Tech Hall, but a detailed analysis showed that too few users would result and the system would lose money. A critical mass for an efficient campus transportation system requires many more students than we plan to enroll. However, the City of Huntsville will be running two routes from the intermodal facility. One route will run from downtown to Madison Square Mall, the other will stop at locations within Research Park, Bridge Street, and the Walmart on University Drive.

The intermodal facility will also be at the middle of the planned greenway, connecting north and south campuses via a walkway designed again to encourage less vehicular traffic on campus. The last few unoccupied houses are being moved off campus and we are clearing the land for the construction of the greenway.

At the same time you may have noticed that Wilson Hall is being deconstructed to its original framework. Soon a completely new structure will appear on the old framework looking something like this:

The new Wilson Hall will have windows in it and be home to our continuing education operation, a new facility for the visual arts and expansion space for our growing nursing college.

Continuing Education has moved to Madison Hall and, in turn, much of the current administration in Madison is moving to Shelbie King Hall across Sparkman for 2-3 years. Space is being renovated there to house the President, Provost, VP for Finance, University Counsel’s office and related staff. Therefore, the bulk of the administration will be further from the heart of campus, thus able to do less damage than usual to the smooth running of the institution.

Finally the softball dugouts have been completed. Baseball dugouts will be installed once additional funding is identified. We also look toward the time when we can construct bleachers and bring our teams back on campus to get the support they deserve.

So what’s next?

So, taking advantage of the new campus entrance on Sparkman and the impressive Shelby Center, our plan (note this word - see American Heritage Dictionary "a tentative project or scheme of action"!) is to either rebuild or replace Madison Hall with a new building designed to mirror the Shelby Center. Visitors, especially prospective students and their parents, will receive a strong impression of a vibrant, modern, campus as they come in our new front gate. With enrollment services and some functions of student affairs moving to this building, and the rest of the administration moving back from Shelbie King Hall, we will also have a compact and efficient administrative center where all the VPs, associate VPs and associate provosts can interact much more closely than was possible before. The space thus freed up in Shelbie King will be expansion space for several highly constrained campus organizations.

In addition, our prime research building, Von Braun Hall is a) old, b) full c) very inefficient to heat and cool and d) classic 1960's architecture – all sound reasons to replace it! Our theater and music students have challenging performance venues and even more challenging practice rooms. Our athletic facilities are woefully inadequate. We have no outdoor track, we play our Division 1 NCAA sport off campus and we have no place to gather for large-scale academic, artistic, social and sporting events such as concerts, commencements, convocations, regional NCAA meets or major invited speakers. These shortfalls and how to address them will be part of a new campus master plan (note the word!) which will be drafted as part of our ongoing strategic planning exercise. Part of this plan will be a comprehensive analysis of current space utilization to make sure we prioritize our spending appropriately. Everyone will have a chance to contribute their thoughts and suggestions via an open web site, on-campus meetings and planning sessions.

Give Dave your comments here!