Courtesy Ellerbe Beckett Two new Law Center buildings, the Eric Hotung International Law Center Building and a sport and fitness recreation center, will complete the Law Center’s 30-year expansion efforts.

Only three miles away, most undergraduates are probably unfamiliar with Georgetown University Law Center’s campus. But like the main campus, the law center has been in the process of expansion.

The Law Center’s Campus Completion Project will add the Eric E. Hotung International Law Center Building as well as a sport and fitness recreation center and another tree-lined green area to the campus, which is scheduled for completion this June.

“The Hotung International Building will enable the Law Center to better prepare our graduates for practice in a global economy. It will also include for the first time an alumni welcoming center in recognition of the fact that their generous support has made the new buildings possible,” Law Center Dean Judith Areen said. “The Sport and Fitness Center should greatly improve the quality of life for all members of the Law Center community.”

The new site for the buildings on corner of First and F Streets was acquired in 1999 and construction began in June 2002. In receiving the land for the new complexes, the Law Center has also been granted sole use of F Street between First and Second Streets, which is now closed to traffic, no small feat in downtown Washington.

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According to the Law Center Web site, the project is “the culmination of a goal set more than two decades ago – to create a campus that would nurture students in mind, body and spirit.”

Wallace Mlyniec, associate dean of the Law Center and chair of the Campus Completion Committee, said he believes that the new complexes will complement the existing Law Center buildings both “in program and in architectural style.”

The first step in the direction of this goal was the opening of the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library in 1989, a five-story building that is now credited as the third largest law library in the nation. The Bernard and Sarah Gewirz Student Center, a residence hall with apartments for 290 students, also opened in 1993. Lastly, the Law Center added an East Wing to McDonough Hall in 1997, which serves as space for clinical programs, offices for faculty and student organizations and classrooms.

“The Law Center has been working to develop needed facilities since the 1970s,” Mlyniec said. According to lyniec, every five years a planning committee is organized with faculty, students and staff as members. That committee then sets a series of goals and plans for the following five years.

“The current design firms of Shepley Bulfinch and Ellerbe Becket have taken the themes of these classic buildings, adapted them to the Law Center’s current vision and stature in the academic and public world and created dramatic concepts which unite the power of academic architecture and the playfulness of urban campus life,” Mlyniec said. “Architectural themes such as the Rotunda and consistency in materials such as brick and precast unite and integrate the design.”

The new library and fitness center are both on time and on budget, planning to meet the expected completion date of June 2004.

Given the amount of snow last winter and unexpected amount of rain last spring, however, Mlyniec said that it is unlikely that the Campus Completion Project will finish early.

While all of the Law Center projects since the library have come in slightly under budget, Mlyniec said that it is unlikely that the project would finish under budget.

The construction is nearly done, Mlyniec said. Brick and windows are being installed and the exterior was completed in December.

The buildings, however, will not be completely finished until this summer. “When we are finished, we will have the most architecturally pleasing campus of any American law school,” lyniec said.

Under the planning committee of 1984-89’s long-range plan, the committee identified a new library as a high priority, and under the leadership of Dean Robert Pitofsky and with generous support from alumni, the Edward Bennett Williams Library was opened in 1989.

Then by the mid-1990s, it was clear to the members of the planning committee that the Law Center needed even more library space as well as more classrooms.

“Our annual surveys of graduating students revealed the need for more space to eat, park and exercise as well,” lyniec said.

After years of negotiating, the Law Center was able to purchase the land east of the Gewirz Student Center, and the dean did extensive fundraising, contacting alumni to see if they were willing to provide some financial support for the construction of a new academic building and fitness center.

When sufficient financial contributions were made in the amount of approximately $20 million, the $60 million project was approved by the Board of Directors of the university, the rest of the money coming from reserves and a bond issue.

The construction process began with a faculty, student and administrator committee that chose the architects to design and build the new complexes.

According to Mlyniec, the only major construction obstacle was that the new buildings are located on “ancient land.” In excavating the area, rocks and sand from the end of the ice age were discovered.

Given the Law Center’s location on historic ground, the planning process, “required negotiations that were sensitive to the land and history that we hold in trust for future generations,” Mlyniec said.

The end of the campus completion project will coincide with the appointment of a new law center dean, following Areen’s announcement last January that she would retire as dean and return to teaching at the Law Center at the end of the 2003-04 school year. The announcement of a new dean is expected next month.