Supporting student growth with facilities made to grow with community

Academic Learning Center created and Chilled Water Plant expanded

K&W’s project team, the civil engineer with of a design team of 5 firms, collaborated with campus staff and design professionals to create a new academic building and chiller plant.

The Academic Learning Center (ALC) will provide 43,000 square feet of state-of-the-art classroom and academic space for the growing campus. A new centralized chilled water plant nearby will connect to existing chillers in the Hanes Library Building, provide cooling for the ALC, and have capacity to expand and provide chilled water to surrounding buildings in the future.

The site scope consists of selective demolition as required, the addition of new paved walkways, and some minor adjustments to the parking areas. Additionally, the south Quad will be designed to reflect the quality of the North Quad and will be prepared to accommodate an additional future facility on the southwest corner. The new facility requires landscaping, lighting, and pedestrian paths. A pedestrian study informed the design team to embrace pedestrian behaviors, leading the new unique shape of the ALC. The design of the new plaza will also complement the admissions building renovations currently underway. 

The chilled water plant requires large truck access. The design team created a separation between the truck entrance and the pedestrian road crossing to enhance the safety of the students and campus community.

K&W is working to keep the site’s cut and fill as balanced as possible. The project design also needs to navigate many existing utilities. New utilities will be engineered in the same area.