By Kara Episcapo
Even though the spring semester is just beginning, the building projects on campus remained in full swing over the break. Construction is advancing daily on the Ekstrom Library addition, the new baseball stadium, the Belknap Research Building and the Ralph Wright Natatorium.
Construction on the library started on Aug. 9, 2004 and is about 15 percent complete. Foundations and underground utilities for the addition are under way and will be completed soon, said Larry Owsley, vice president for business affairs at the University of Louisville. The $14 million, 42,500-square-foot addition is scheduled to be completed on Sept. 13, 2005. Construction is behind because of the rainy weather, said Owsley, but plans are in place to make up time with an additional crew installing the concrete lower level walls, he added.
One of the most important services offered by the new addition will be an automated storage/retrieval system for books. The system is run by computers and will save students the hassle of searching shelves for books. Students will request a specific book at the circulation desk, which will then alert the computer system. The book will be retrieved from the new addition by robotic systems and delivered to the desk.
“There is nothing like it [the automated system] in the South,” Hannelore Rader, dean of libraries, said. “The closest is in Indiana and Eastern Michigan.”
Rader says there are only four other of these systems in the United States. The other two are located in California and Nevada.
The new addition will allow the library to house 1.2 million books, in comparison with the 600,000 it is capable of now.
Another feature of the library addition will be a café with indoor and outdoor seating. Rader said she is negotiating with the university to get a Starbucks in the new addition.
Along with 24-hour study rooms and a 150-seat state-of-the-art auditorium, the library will eventually play home to the McConnell Center, which will increase the number of speakers and presentations on campus.
“I want this to be a place where students really socialize, to come and study, learn and teach,” Rader said.
Like the library addition, the new baseball stadium, which broke ground in late August 2004, is continuing to advance. Owsley said the stadium construction is essentially on schedule despite the heightened amount of rainfall. The $6.5 million facility is being funded by private donations and is scheduled for completion next February.
The stadium will include 1,500 chair-style seats, a stadium club box, a press box including broadcast and press facilities, an artificial turf field and concession stands.
“With the stadium location at Third and Central Avenues, the facility will provide a new gateway to the Belknap Campus,” Owsley said.
The most costly addition to the University of Louisville’s Belknap Campus, at $44 million, the Belknap Research Building has been under construction since May 2003 and will finish in February 2006. The 106,000-square-foot facility will house researchers from several of the university’s undergraduate and graduate programs.
“Upon completion, the building will be used for multidisciplinary research, including nanotechnology, biomechanics, bioengineering and theoretical and applied physics, accommodating approximately 40 research scientists with different specialties,” Owsley said.
The facility will also house Kentucky’s largest controlled environment. This “clean room” will allow researchers to “fabricate, package and test microelectronic devices and circuits,” said Owsley.
The fourth building project, the Ralph Wright Natatorium, will house a 50-meter pool with two movable bulkheads, eight lanes, a one-meter springboard, three-meter springboards and a 10-meter platform. The nearly-$11 million facility will also include public lockers and a hospitality/meeting room. The project, which began construction on Jan. 26, 2004, is scheduled to be completed by July 2005.
