Just as students have left campus, the Office of Facilities has revved up for the summer.
In addition to relocating the School of Continuing Studies downtown and beginning construction on the Healey Family Student Center, Facilities will undertake 12 construction and renovation projects this summer in locations including the Magis Row townhouses, Dahlgren Chapel, the Calcagnini Contemplative Center in Clarke County, Va. and an art studio in the Edmund A. Walsh Building.
“Generally during the summer we have a higher percentage of projects that people want to do that can only be done in the summer when either the faculty is not at their peak or the students are not here,” Vice President for Planning and Facilities Management Robin Morey said.
The Calcagnini Contemplative Center has been under construction in the Blue Ridge Mountains since fall 2011 and is set to be completed over the summer. The center is a gift from the Calcagnini family, who also fully endowed the ESCAPE First Year Experience in 1991.
The new complex will be used for Campus Ministry retreats, including ESCAPE, starting this fall.
“[The center] expands the footprint of Georgetown geographically by 55 acres, and I think it just opens a new chapter for Georgetown in terms of our retreats program, really extending our sense of community beyond the hilltop here,” ESCAPE Program Director Bridget Sherry said.
The center will also provide Georgetown programs with more flexibility, as the retreats will now take place at a Georgetown-owned location rather than the Shepherd’s Spring Outdoor Ministry Center in Sharpsburg, Md., where ESCAPE currently take place.
“When we were [at Shepherd’s Spring] for [ESCAPE leader] training we had to share the center with a group of 50-year-old women who were there to do crafts and puzzles,” Livia Matteucci (COL ’16) said. “It gets annoying sometimes because we don’t always have access to the lodge, whereas with the new center, we’ll be given primary access to it.”
ESCAPE has booked Shepherd’s Spring for all retreats next fall in the case of a construction delay.
The facilities department will also convert a lecture classroom on the third floor of Walsh to a drawing studio for the art department. A laboratory in Walsh will be converted into a lecture classroom to compensate for the lost space. David Hidalgo (COL ’74, MED ’78), a plastic surgeon, is funding the studio renovations.
Currently, the art department occupies the first and second floors of Walsh, which art professors say is not enough to accommodate the 350 to 500 students in studio classes each semester.
“We’re pressed for space, which often creates a situation where multiple disciplines within the arts are sharing the space, … and it makes it difficult to offer more courses to students but also to just smoothly run the art classes,” Art Department Chair John Morrell said.
“Being able to have a larger room with a set-up that’s appropriate for drawing only where there’s space for still-life objects, model stands, things like that, will make it a more useful space for drawing teachers,” Gallery Director Evan Reed, who has taught both drawing and design, said. “It will be a nicer space all around, and it will also free up space down below for more studio room for 3-D.”
The exterior renovations of Dahlgren Chapel will be completed early this summer, at which point interior renovations will begin. Renovations of the interior, which involve replacing half of the existing floor, basic refurbishing and installation of new seating, will be completed by the fall, according to Director of Liturgy and Music James Wickman. A new organ will be installed in January 2014.
“[The renovation] is going to take the beautiful liturgies that we already have and enhance them even more and make participation better and make people’s prayer experiences better,” Wickman said.
Dahlgren Chapel will be closed for part of the summer during construction. Sunday Mass and weekend services will be held in St. William’s Chapel between June 21 and Aug. 25, while weekday Mass will be held in Copley Crypt Chapel between June 3 and Sept. 6.
The construction projects will not significantly impact campus activity this summer, according to Morey.
“There are going to be impacts, but I would say, by and large, it’s going to be transparent to most people,” he said.
Facilities projects will also include repurposing 18 Magis Row Townhouses as faculty housing and administrative space in accordance with the 2010 Campus Plan, replacing the roof on McDonough Gymnasium, converting a computer lab in St. Mary’s hall into faculty offices and renovating three classrooms in White Gravenor.
