Students will return in the spring semester to the newest college
dining hall in Virginia.
Work on the two-story, 69,000-square
foot building attached to Iler will be done by Dec. 1, with the move
taking place over Christmas break. The dining facility and Iler look
like one building, with a center portion connecting Iler and a section
of similar size and appearance near the intersection of Pine and Redford
streets. The rear, facing Iler Field, features a curved, colonnaded
portico. It cost $7.2 million to build, and another $1.3 million was
spent on equipment and furnishings.
It's the first Longwood building to
utilize geothermal heating and cooling, and Rob Key, Director of Facilities
Management, knows of only four other buildings at Virginia colleges
(two at Hampden-Sydney and two at Southside Virginia Community College)
that employ this technology. Some 150 wells, each 290 feet deep, were
drilled in Iler field by well-drilling rigs to allow for placement
of the piping.
"The earth maintains a relatively
constant temperature, so we're using it as a giant energy-absorbing
device," Key said. "Water is circulated from the building
into the pipes buried in the wells. The earth helps cool the building
in the summer and warm it in the winter by tempering the water that
runs through the building's heat pump system. Deep wells have to be
drilled because you need substantial surface area to transfer enough
heat for such a large building. Each well has 580 feet of pipe: a
pipe that carries the water 290 feet down, and another that carries
it 290 feet back up. The pipes in the wells are connected in series
so that water travels thousands of feet through the piping system
before returning to the building."
The Rotunda Market, in the lower section
of the current dining hall, will become the new Barnes & Noble bookstore
(now adjacent to it), tentatively slated to open in Spring 2001, and
the upper section, Blackwell Dining Hall, will be used as conference
and rental space for banquets, meetings and wedding receptions.
In other projects, all three floors
of East, West and Main Ruffner will be renovated beginning in February,
after asbestos is removed and the Rotunda artwork is restored. Large
portions of the building, which will continue to be used for classrooms
and offices, will be gutted and redone. The work is expected to take
18 months.
The College will learn of its request
for $17 million in State funds for a new science building, to be built
between the Academic Residence Community (ARC) and the Library, when
the Governor releases his proposed budget Dec. 20. Longwood has been
given $860,000 for comprehensive planning and construction documents.
When the new science building is erected, Stevens Hall will be converted
into a residence hall. The College also has received $100,000 from
the State to begin planning for the renovation of Jarman Auditorium,
along with an addition to Jarman to provide a mini-theater.
This past summer the Longwood Small
Business Development Center was expanded and renovated, the Grainger
roof was replaced, the air-conditioning systems and elevators in Curry
were replaced, the electrical systems in the Cunninghams, Cox, Stubbs
and Wheeler were upgraded, and major repairs were made in Cox to the
plumbing and tiles in the showers.
View
Construction Photos of the New Dining Hall
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