By
President Peter Likins
Dear Members of the Campus Community,
For those of you who have gotten used to life in the construction zone on the University of Arizona campus, there are some heartening signs of progress this fall. The necessary mess and inconvenience of construction is starting to be replaced by completed projects. First of all, there are 80 new rooms in the newly built addition to Pima Hall that will ease the housing crunch of the last two years just a little. That also means that First Street will finally be clear of construction fences and traffic will flow more smoothly.
The addition to Steward Observatory is also complete, which means that construction fences come down on north Cherry Ave, and around the building itself.
The new UA Police Station at the east end of First Street and Campbell Ave was completed just before school was out, so streets are clear and parking is more convenient.
The Student Union and Bookstore project has made a great deal of progress over the summer and will move along this fall. You can see for yourself how quickly the steel structures have risen over the summer. When you come back from the winter break, you'll be able to buy your books in the new bookstore, and eat in brand new restaurants before the spring semester. Fences will come down on the east end of the Student Union, and go up on the west end of the bookstore as Phase II of the project begins. It's more difficult to actually see the progress in the Integrated Learning Center (the big project right in the center of the mall). The concrete shell for the building has been poured, and the ceiling is being put rapidly into place. Next fall when you return to campus, the project will be finished, and the Mall will be returned to the green lawn that has been a landmark for Wildcats for many decades.
The Main Library will be adding a fifth floor to the west pod of the library, renovating the special collections and the circulation desk area.
An Information Commons will connect the Integrated Learning Center with the Library. The Commons, open to the campus 24 hours a day, will have high-end computers and multi media stations. I expect it to become one of the most active places on campus when it opens in the fall of 2001. When the Library project is complete, the temporary construction parking lot on the east end of the Mall will be removed, and turf will be replaced, completing the restoration of the Mall.
You'll see some unfamiliar new construction fences up this year. The most obvious construction site is McKale Memorial Center. The Athletics Department has begun work on the new Eddie Lynch Athletics Pavilion, which includes the Hall of Champions and the Strength and Conditioning and Medical Treatment Centers. For the next two years, Arizona Football Tailgating will be relocated to Gittings lawn, the paved area of the UA mall just east of Campbell and east of Old Main in front of the Student Union. Traffic on Campbell may be more congested prior to game time due to the closure of Cherry Avenue and the new tailgating locations. The expected completion date is fall of 2001.
Finally, the new Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques (SALT) building will be constructed between First and Second Streets on Highland. The staging area for that building will narrow Second Street from three lanes to two, but traffic will continue to flow down Second as usual. The new building will allow the SALT program to consolidate the parts of its program that are currently scattered over campus into a single space in a new building. That, too, is projected to be completed in fall of 2001. Like the film of the same name, the year 2001 on the University of Arizona campus is going to be a journey into the future. For those of you who have only heard legends of the days when it was possible to drive through campus on Cherry Ave, Cherry will finally be open again. The green grass of the Mall will once again stretch from Campbell to Old Main. Freshmen will attend classes in a state of the art building in the center of campus. Services for students with special learning needs will be consolidated in a single building constructed solely to meet their needs. The 24-hour computer lab that stretches between ILC and the Library will be a center of activity in the wee hours of the morning. The newly renovated library will meet the needs of students in a more effective way. McKale will finally have a welcoming front door to the community, and men and women athletes will have a performance and conditioning center that is appropriate for their needs. A year and a half later, when the Student Union/Bookstore is complete, there will be a renewed sense of community along the Mall, which is the very core of life for the campus community.
You have all endured much inconvenience and actual hardship during this intense construction, and I thank you. Now, we are very close to tasting the benefits that these projects will bring to the very core of the campus community. Hang in there! We are almost home.
Sincerely,
Peter Likins
President
