As West Virginia University students begin arriving for the fall semester, they’ll notice that construction crews have been at work finishing new projects and making substantial progress on a new wave of University and town landmarks.

All students will be able to visit the Health and Education Building for health clinics, counseling, wellness services and a pharmacy, as well as classes in the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences – connected facilities on the Evansdale campus, next to the Student Recreation Center.

As students move in to their University home, several will be occupying the new College Park development, the first of five public-private partnership projects to be completed at the University. The housing complex adds family-style housing with a total of 567 beds, a playground and a community center on Willey Street.

The University’s public-private partnership projects will contribute more than $81 million to local and state tax coffers in the next 40 years, which works out to nearly $1.7 million annually. These numbers come in the form of building, occupation and sales taxes. The projects are revenue-based and don’t rely on tuition or state dollars for design or construction. In addition to College Park, they include University Place, University Park, Evansdale Crossing and the Baseball Stadium Complex.

“The current building construction and improvements are transforming the campus and will position West Virginia University to compete for students worldwide,” said Randy Hudak, associate vice president for Facilities and Services.

“Quality housing and state of the art research and teaching facilities are critical to providing our students the education necessary to be successful in the workplace. Each graduate will leave with a quality education and experiences that will showcase WVU, Morgantown and West Virginia.”

Later in the fall, one of the University’s largest public-private partnership projects, University Place, will be open for residents to enjoy both residential and retail space. Along with putting finishing touches on the buildings, workers are currently creating the complex’s two acres of parking.

The Evansdale Campus has a whole new feel now that the Art Museum of WVU and other buildings are months away from completion. Officials estimate that the museum space will house art for public visitation in the late spring or early summer.

Students who passed the construction site of the Advanced Engineering Research Building in the spring can see most of the exterior work done on the four-story space that is expected to one day house the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and support the growth of all engineering departments on campus. It’s slated for completion early in the spring semester.

On the Health Sciences campus, Ruby Memorial Hospital is building a new tower that will create space for 114 beds and provide new, larger and more accessible space for the Jon Michael Moore Trauma Center and the Emergency Department.

Nearby, the new Rosenbaum Family House has opened to provide more space for families visiting loved ones receiving care at WVU Hospitals. The building includes a new and larger Child Development Center for the children of WVU Healthcare employees.

Other projects at various stages include:

• The law school addition is complete, which added offices, classrooms, clinic space, courtrooms and event space.
• It’s time to get excited for baseball season because the new Baseball Stadium Complex with a sweeping vista of Morgantown is set for completion in the spring. You can even track webcam footage to check up on the site’s progress.
• Nearby, the three-story WVU Healthcare Outpatient Center under construction at the University Town Centre will house a variety of clinics, including Family Medicine, Behavioral Medicine, Neurology, Internal Medicine/Medicine Specialties, Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pediatrics.
• Also set to open in the spring, Evansdale Crossing, a public-private partnership project, will house classroom and study space, food services, a bookstore and other amenities while also uniting the upper and lower sections of Evansdale near the Engineering Personal Rapid Transit station.
• The Milan Puskar Team Auditorium near the coaching offices, set to open in 2015, will provide a meeting room for team video coaching sessions and other athlete gatherings.
• University Park: This 1,310-bed public-private partnership housing and retail project is scheduled to open fall 2015 near the former sites of Fieldcrest Hall and Medical Center Apartments.
• The current building boom will be winding down when the new Agricultural Sciences Building nears completion at the end of 2015.
• The Milan Puskar Stadium concourse expansion to replace existing restrooms and concessions, widen the concourse and add new entry gates, among other changes, is expected to finish in 2016.

A variety of parking, intersection, renovation and infrastructure changes are also scheduled throughout the next few years.

To keep up with construction and renovation work on campus, visit http://construction.wvu.edu, visit WVUConstruction on Facebook or follow @WVUConstruction on Twitter.

-WVU-

dm/08/13/14

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