Chapel Hill, N.C., municipal officials heard an update on a diverse list of construction efforts in the college town Sept. 28 from a University of North Carolina architect.
Several major development projects in the bustling community are ongoing, according to Evan Yassky's report. In addition, he told the town council that a few others are still in the design phase.
Below are the top building jobs that Yassky mentioned in his presentation to Chapel Hill municipal leaders.
Projects Under Construction
The Kenan Football Center is being built next to the west side of Kenan Stadium. It will house offices, locker rooms and other facilities for the UNC Tarheels football squad.
"We're adding a small addition to that building, primarily to add some therapeutic spaces in the sports medicine area for the student athletes to [be] more in line with peer institutions that have those types of spaces for their team," explained Yassky.
When finished in the spring, the Medical Education Building will officially be renamed "Roper Hall" after Bill Roper, the former dean and CEO of the hospital, who recently retired.
Constructed with a 50-year vision, space in Roper Hall will be flexible and functional for immediate needs while still being adaptable to future changes in medical education and technology, according to the UNC Health Foundation's website. The modern facility will help recruit and support students, residents and faculty to thrive at UNC.
UNC wants the upgraded learning space to educate and train more healthcare providers — up to 230 per class — to address the demand for doctors who will practice, innovate and lead with humility and compassion.
The university told Chapelboro.com, a local online news site serving Chapel Hill and Carrboro, that it expects the hospital to be open in 2023, just in time to welcome the next class of medical students.
In addition, the UNC Health Surgical Tower is another project the university has contracted to build, with a goal of welcoming patients in 2024. That facility will be the largest on the university's medical campus and will reach seven stories tall.
"It's been a long time coming," Yassky reported to the Chapel Hill Town Council. "It's now well out of the ground — much of the sod is in place, but there's still about a year-plus of construction and commission to get it operational."
Much needed renovations to the outdoor Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center, located on the UNC campus behind the Friday Conference Center, are slated to be done by next spring. They will include a new stadium with refurbished courts, elevated stadium seating, an up-to-date scoring system and lighting that meets NCAA Final Four hosting standards.
A new team facility and improvements to the indoor courts also are in the works, but the outdoor upgrades will be finished first in 2023, totaling around $17 million.
It is great news for both the men's and women's tennis teams as they have each been among the most successful college programs in recent memory, taking home a combined four indoor national championships in the last three seasons. That is despite having to play on some of the worst home courts in the nation.
"The tennis courts out there were in pretty bad shape — they were cracking annually, and every spring was a race to get the courts fixed in time for competition," Yassky said. "Both men's and women's teams have been performing quite well and reaching high rankings, and we're building this facility to get it up to speed with what the team is doing."
Projects in Design
A construction contract for the Horace Williams Solar and Energy Storage center recently was signed, according to Chapelboro.com. It is set to be built at a site that used to be the Horace Williams Airport at Carolina North off Estes Drive in Chapel Hill.
"In the coming months we'll start to see this solar array [being erected] out there, and I've presented this at least a couple of times," Yassky said in speaking with the news source. "It generates interest, and we're very excited to have the contract struggles with the installer behind us so we can finally have this installation on our site."
Carrington Hall is the home of the UNC School of Nursing, which is increasing its class size. Improvements to the building will allow it to host new, larger facilities for students in both the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine. UNC aims to begin construction next year, shortly after the university's Medical Education Building is completed.
Chapelboro.com reported that a $6.8 million donation is making the Carrington Hall Renewal project possible.
Chapel Hill Town Council Member Camille Berry said she was thrilled to hear about the effort.
"I just wanted to say thank you for all of this work you're doing with your campus, which is in our town," Berry noted. "I was really excited to hear about the expansion of the class size for nursing, because we so desperately need nurses and more [medical] professionals."
The Kenan-Flagler Business School Addition and Renovation will undergo a major expansion after donor Steven D. Bell Hall pledged a $25 million gift. The new building will include 16 classrooms — double the current number of teaching spaces — as well as enhanced technology for hybrid and online courses. Additionally, the structure will become LEED Gold Certified.
UNC officials held the groundbreaking for the business school renovation on Sept. 28, but construction is not expected to begin until the end of the year. Once under way, it will take a projected 26 months to complete. Renovations to the nearby McColl Building will take an additional year. The new Kenan-Flagler building will be next to its parking deck and connected to the McColl Building via an entrance on Blythe Drive.
The Porthole Alley Redevelopment Project includes the design of UNC's Undergraduate Admissions building, a reimagined Welcome Center, retention programs, and an expansion of retail opportunities. The site will be on Franklin Street at the northwest corner of the campus.
University officials told Chapelboro.com that the project is one of their top priorities, and they hope to provide a more extensive update on the design soon.
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