Historic buildings to be renovated

The Health Sciences Building and Parks Memorial Hall will get a $10 million face lift if Governor Sonny Perdue’s budget is approved by the state legislature.

Georgia College & State University should get an answer sometime before the state legislature concludes its session in late March or early April. If approved, the money will go toward renovating both the Health Sciences and Parks Memorial buildings while also erecting a new building connecting the two.

“We are very pleased with the Governor’s support for this important capital project,” said GC&SU President Dorothy Leland.

According to Dean of the School of Health Sciences Jimmy Ishee, the new connecting building will impact the most students, as it will house a new student health clinic.

“The building will be two floors. One floor will be the clinic and one will be classrooms. We’re going to have a brand new student clinic that’s going to really be nice and have the most recent accommodations,” he said.

The new connector will also give students with disabilities access to all floors of the three buildings. As it stands now, only the first floor of Health Sciences and Parks is accessible to those with special needs.

“In this connection, there will be a handicap accessible elevator that will have exits to either side so that all floors then become handicap accessible,” Ishee said. “Trying to stick an elevator in one of the other buildings really detracts from their historical nature. We will meet all of our handicap guidelines in our new facility.”

Once the project is completed, all the programs in kinesiology and music therapy will be housed in one of the three buildings. Buildings will house offices, classrooms and athletic training and exercise science labs.

“Basically the entire School of Health Sciences’ academic programs will be housed there,” Ishee said. “All the programs will be housed at the new facility except the Wellness Depot.”

However, outdoor education students will still go to their facilities at West Campus and Lake Laurel, while athletic training students will work with the athletes at the Centennial Center.

During construction, classes and offices will take many different homes around campus and throughout town.

“There will be some in Kilpatrick, some in Arts and Sciences and some in Atkinson,” Ishee said. “The other deans have been very, very cooperative in working with us and providing us space to have our classes. Our big nursing labs will be moved out to Central State Hospital and they have been very good with working with us and giving us some area out there to teach our laboratory courses in nursing.”

The Health Science faculty will be moved either to Beeson or Terrell Hall while the clinic will be moved temporarily to Beeson Hall during the renovations. Nurse Practitioner Stephanie Welch does not think the move will have a great effect on students.

“As far as location, it won’t inconvenience the students. That’s really our main thing; we want to make sure students are taken care of,” Welch said.

The renovations are on what is called the state’s major projects list. Each year, the legislature funds only so many projects on the list. This project has been on the list for about five years.

“A major construction project on the list is usually a five to eight year process,” Ishee said. “Recently, the budgets have been very stretched, so they haven’t gone down the list very far each year. If you submit a project, it goes to the bottom of the list.”

Once the funds are approved, the state has to sell bonds to raise funds. “The bonds are sometimes sold in the spring, and sometimes they’re not sold until the summer or fall. They don’t tell us when,” said Ishee.

The time of the year the bonds are sold will directly effect when construction will begin. If the bonds are sold during the summer, construction could start as early as fall of this year, but if the bonds are not sold until fall, the project will probably not commence until spring 2006.

Once the money is released, the contractor starts and the project will then most likely take a year and a half, Ishee said.

One major obstacle for the contractors and architects is the historical nature of both buildings. Parks Memorial Hall, named in memory of former president Marvin Parks, was constructed in 1928 and The Health Sciences Building was built in 1929.

“The architecture is going to reflect very well what the other buildings have,” said Associate Director for Planning, Construction and Business Services Rick Ruark. “We’ve already made presentations to the Historic Preservation Commission in Atlanta. We’ve got their acceptance and we’re moving forward from there.”

The Health Sciences indoor pool will also be renovated, and like other parts of the overhaul, it will be out of commission for a few years.

As of now, plans also include reverting the parking lot behind the buildings into a walking plaza for students.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 18 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry