Trustees, faculty, staff and students at Catawba College will celebrate the construction of five new residence halls on campus at a groundbreaking ceremony scheduled at 11:15 a.m. Tuesday, September 19. The ceremony is scheduled on the lawn of the Cannon Student Center.
Shortly after the groundbreaking, demolition of Abernethy Residence Hall will begin, followed by construction of the residence halls which will replace it. Two of the new residence halls will feature apartment-style living, with kitchens and common living space, while three of the new halls will offer suite-style living. Each of the five three-story halls will house between 24 and 28 students.
Two of the new residence halls will sit on Summit Avenue between Pine Knot Residence Hall and the Ruth Richards House and will face each other, sharing a common courtyard. The other three residence halls will be sited where Abernethy currently sits, and these three will face the campus interior.
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The Knoxville, Tennessee-based higher education consulting firm of Lawler-Wood will act as project manager and is working with the College to finalize plans for the construction and other renovations on campus.
College officials expect all five residence halls to be completed and ready to occupy before the start of the ’07-’08 academic year. Simultaneous with the residence hall construction, work will begin to renovate Hoke Hall as the new hub for information technology, to renovate the Corriher-Linn-Black Library as the campus academic center, and to expand and renovate the Cannon Student Center to create more on-campus gathering places for students.
At their annual meeting in February, college trustees authorized administrators to proceed with the ambitious plan for making capital improvements on campus. Wachovia Bank agreed to finance $15 million in bonds to underwrite the projects and in conjunction with that college officials launched a multi-million dollar capital campaign to support the effort. The bonds were issued September 11.
