FIRE RECOVERY PROGRESS REPORT
17 August 2001
It has been almost four months since the last smoldering embers of the Great Fire of 2001 died away, and the college has made rapid progress with renovation and reconstruction plans over the summer.
South Ruffner -
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Priority one was
to bring the residence halls back online by the beginning of the fall
semester. French, South Ruffner and South Tabb are now ready for occupancy.
Renovation of Main Tabb will include the installation of a new roof
and will continue through the fall semester. Tabb should be ready for
occupancy in the spring semester of 2002.
The Ruffner complex site has been completely cleared, and plans are well underway to rebuild the Ruffners and the Rotunda to their former grandeur. The college has hired an architectural and engineering firm, Fred Kuntz and Associates, to begin the design of the Ruffners. The college has also obtained the original blueprints of the Ruffner complex from the state archives in Richmond.
Grainger Hall is still being evaluated for possible restoration. Structural engineers have been analyzing the damage to Grainger in order to assess whether or not the building is structurally sound. A decision should be made very soon determining whether Grainger Hall should be renovated or razed and reconstructed.
Elsewhere on campus,
modular units have been placed behind the college library to serve as
faculty offices for those who were displaced from Grainger Hall. The English,
Philosophy, and Modern Languages departments have been relocated to this
new office space while faculty from the departments of Mathematics and
Computer Science are now located in the Hiner Building. The ROTC program
has been moved to the Watkins Abbitt Federal Office Building on the corner
of Main and High Streets in downtown Farmville.
Faculty Modular Units -
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New Bookstore Location -
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Nine new classrooms have been created in other existing space on campus: seven classrooms on the first floor of Frazer and Curry Residence Halls and two classrooms in the Wynne Building. The foreign language lab has been relocated to the upper floor of the library.
The former Eddie's
Supermarket in the downtown Farmville Shopping Center is the new home
of the Barnes & Noble Campus Bookstore and the campus print shop.
Printing Services Director Tim Trent and his staff will serve the campus
from this new location and a smaller satellite location in lower Lankford
that will operate primarily as a copy center. The bookstore and printing
services were open for business in their new locations in late July.
Public support for the Rotunda Fund continues with a total of over $328,000 donated to the college as of mid-August.
Longwood Printing Services -
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| For more details on the April 24 fire, check the Longwood web site at: http://www.longwood.edu/news/releases/ruffnerfire.html |