On-Campus Projects "Going Very Well"

Kelsey Steele

Issue date: 9/15/06 Section: News

Page 1 of 1

Construction continues on the Wellness and Athletic Center.

While the massive skeleton of the Wellness and Athletics Center perched on the southeast corner of campus progresses everyday toward completion, more plans are being revealed about underpasses, roundabouts, villages, and ball fields. With so much news it is hard to keep track of all the plans, or even imagine what the Hendrix Campus will look like come this May. Hendrix College President J. Timothy Cloyd shared a few details about the ongoing construction and projects in the making, so that students can keep track of what their world will look like when they land back campus this time next year.

"The progress on the construction of the Wellness and Athletics Center is going very well, we're actually ahead of schedule," Cloyd said. "The facility is still expected to open in June 2007, and Grove Gym will be gone by the time students return for classes next year.

"We have a lot of celebrations planned for the last games and swim meets in Grove," Cloyd said. "We will have alumni coming to visit and we want students to help us celebrate the history of the building.

"The faculty and staff in Grove will move to the new facility at the beginning of May," Cloyd said. "The Kinesiology classrooms and labs will be state of the art, and there will be a large Warrior memorabilia room with a lot more display space, and it will be home to our old pictures and things."

Cloyd went on to describe the new features of the W.A.C. that students can look forward to.

"The fitness area is going to be about 7000 or 8000 square feet with all kinds of nice new equipment," Cloyd said, "and the climbing wall will be very exciting. We want to use this building as an educational building so it can be used for a lot of things.

"The seats in the intercollegiate basketball court will be chair-back seats in Hendrix orange, and a lot of work has been done on the mascot. We're getting close to a possibility, and the new look of the mascot is going to be distinctively Hendrix. We got a lot of feedback from students on that."

In addition to what features the building will offer, the outdoor sports facilities are all planned to be ready for 2007-2008 seasons.

"You should start seeing activity on the Village phase 1 at the end of ball season," Cloyd said, "so we'll be creating pads for the new baseball and softball fields this fall, and growing grass on them this spring, at Siebenmorgen Rd. There will be enhancements to the quality of the two fields already there, and the tennis courts will be removed and put over there when the ball fields are."

Cloyd said that construction for the Village will begin with the redesign of Harkrider St. this upcoming spring, and should be completed in the spring of 2008.

"The most complex issue we're working out right now is the Harkrider project," Cloyd said. "There has been a discussion with the city of Conway about pedestrian crossing at grade, and where we are ending up right now is, with agreement with the city and state, we're getting a 16 foot wide walkway that goes under the road, with pumps for drainage and appropriate lighting for safety."

"This development is going to put Hendrix in the vanguard because it will show that it is possible to build village neighborhoods much more friendly to human beings and not suburban sprawl," Cloyd said.

Last month a committee was formed to examine plans for the renovation of Hulen Hall, which should begin sometime in 2008. There will be a new dining hall built on the Grove site once the building is cleared, and Hulen will be redesigned.

Director of Student Activities Dave Wagner, who oversees programming spaces in Hulen, said he would like to see the activity space and resources grow with the growth of the student body.

"I think dividing the dining hall and ballroom from student affairs will allow us to maintain a potential for both spaces without worrying about space needed for certain activities," Wagner said. "We are designing spaces that are intelligently multi-purpose."

The committee will be looking at what the new facility should feature, and how to redesign the spaces that will remain, and student input is a valuable asset to this process.

The current plans for the Wellness and Athletics Center and the Village are on display in the Hulen Ballroom, and more information is available at www.hendrix.edu/village.

Page 1 of 1