Running various errands this early evening/late afternoon, I heard on WEMU (during a local news segment) discussing briefly the Board of Regents meeting. As I understood it, BoR chair Tom Sidlick discussed with the WEMU reporters that construction on Mark Jefferson will begin in November and construction on Pray-Harrold will begin by the end of the year.
Now, I had heard the stuff about Mark Jefferson, though what I have heard is that it’s very behind schedule, the scope of the project has been drastically reduced, and “beginning construction” will probably mean a ceremonial ground-breaking ceremony and not much else. But I hadn’t heard the bit about Pray-Harrold.
Again, I’m not entirely sure what Sidlick meant by “end of the year” (end of this calendar year? the school year? the fiscal year?), and, given that a lot more planning/discussion on Pray-Harrold construction needs to happen, I’m hoping that what he means by “construction” he just means getting started.
I don’t know. But I’ll say this:
- I would be completely shocked if faculty, staff, students, and anyone else will have to “move out” of PH in any way within the next five years– thus the “I will believe it when I see it” bit.
- I really wish that the BoR would announce the building of different buildings that would lead (eventually) to the tearing down of Pray-Harrold; assuming that won’t happen…
- I hope that the powers that be clue us in at some point about just how they are going to reconstruct the busiest building on campus without completely disrupting day to day live in PH.
Anybody else know anything about this?
