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Dean of Student Development Rex Waters and his orientation staff have changed their approach for Friday’s move-in day because of the ongoing construction for the new School of Communications facilities.
For past move-in days, campus police directed incoming families through Lebanon Avenue to get to a staging area for move-ins. But with construction taking place on Lebanon, Elon decided to take a different route to quickly get students and parents to residence halls.
“What we’ve done in the past isn’t going to work with the construction happening, so we developed a new strategy,” Waters said. “We have been in a collaboration with everyone from construction to campus police on how to best approach this and get families moving efficiently.”
For Friday’s move-in day, incoming families will be staged in a queue directed by Elon Police at the Arts West building. They can unload belongings at both Haggard Avenue and North O’Kelly Avenue. Traffic from the 1,500 families entering campus will flow from there to five different residential areas on campus.
The new School of Communications construction will factor into campus operations beyond move-in day, as work will continue until its expected August 2016 completion.
The most notable change spurred by the construction is changes to student, faculty and staff parking for the fall semester.
Whitley parking lot, which supplied roughly 100 parking spaces off Lebanon Avenue, will no longer be available for the faculty and staff who previously parked in it. Faculty and staff will instead park in the former women’s softball lot at E. College Avenue and Kerr Avenue. The Historic Neighborhood residents who parked at that lot will move to the East Gym lot.
According to Director of Campus Safety and Police Dennis Franks, moving faculty and staff to the East Gym lot and keeping Historic Neighborhood residents in place would raise safety concerns.
“Faculty and staff who had parked in East Gym arrive around the same time Elon Elementary students are dropped off,” Franks said. “We anticipate with the loss of Whitley lot that more employees will park in East Gym, and this could create safety hazards for all involved with the number of cars coming and going during pickup and dropoff.”
Lighting and security camera enhancements have been added to the East Gym lot in anticipation for the students parking there Technology Services Coordinator Scott Jean said in an email sent to all students in July.
Those with Francis Center and Graduate permits won’t be able to park on Lebanon Avenue next to the railroad tracks because of the construction, Jean said. They will still be able to park in the other designated Francis Center and Graduate permit lots. The same applies for those with commuter permits.
The construction will also affect anyone who regularly drives on Lebanon Avenue. Three road closures are scheduled in September 4-7 a.m., according to Jody Booth, project manager for Planning, Design and Construction Management.
“When you have those big concrete trucks, it’s hard to steer them around and help traffic flow normally, so it’s best to just close it off during that time,” he said.
Traffic will increase during construction because of the number of trucks going in and out of the site with deliveries. Workdays for construction start around 7 a.m. and end at 7 p.m.
“For the most part, the construction will just create a bit more traffic,” Booth said. “Noise shouldn’t be an issue because they won’t be working really late or really early. And when exams come, we’ll take a look at adjusting the work times.”
Construction for the new School of Communications facilities is expected to be completed by August 2016. It will expand the current School of Communications from 40,000 square feet to more than 100,000 square feet and add a two-story building, an atrium and a pavilion to the school.