New business school to help transform the look of USD’s campus

When students return to campus in the fall they will be greeted with continued progress on the several construction and renovation projects being undertaken university wide.

The most visible completed project will likely be the new business school and the resulting quad the building will create with the School of Law and the Muenster Univeristy Center, says Gordon Hollenbeck, project engineer with the South Dakota Office of the State Engineer.

“You’ll see big changes to the business school of course but you’ll also see the landscape cleaned up a lot,” Hollenbeck said. “It’s going to look totally different when it’s finished.”
Although the project is still on schedule, it hasn’t been immune to minor delays, said Cathy Wagner, director of construction and planning for USD.

“There have been typical construction issues,” Wagner said. “But nothing on the scale of the MUC.”

In addition to the green space project involving the MUC and the business school, several other areas on campus will see landscaping improvements and sidewalk repairs, Hollenbeck said.

Slagle Auditorium will begin to see substantial progress over the summer on its renovation, Hollenbeck said.

He added that the original anticipated completion date for Slagle Auditorium of February 2010 will likely be pushed back to May as a result of delays early on in the process. Hollenbeck also noted that his office is currently negotiating a contract with Schantz Organ Company of Orrville, Ohio, which specializes in pipe organ restoration and construction.

Another project that will begin construction over the summer is the Coyote Village suite style housing complex. A contractor will be selected May 11 to design and build the facility, which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2010, Hollenbeck said.

Wagner said students should be excited about the myriad improvements to USD’s facilities.

“It’s a great time for students to be a part of the changes here on campus,” she said.

Reach reporter Nick Woltman at Nick.Woltman@usd.edu.

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out