Building Projects Must Tread Lightly

Photo by: 

Johnson- Charlie Reetz

Photo by: 

Tom Coakley- Courtesy of Tara Freeman

Before President Dan Sullivan’s arrival in 1996, no new buildings had been constructed on campus since 1972.

The aging structures put the university at a competitive disadvantage with other selective liberal arts colleges that could attract prospective students with vast indoor athletic facilities and modern classrooms. Partly as a result, St. Lawrence’s applicant pool shrunk and its total number of undergraduates dropped as low as about 1,800 students.

To catch up, Sullivan and the trustees quickly initiated a building program that resulted in the new Student Center, the Newell Field House and Johnson Hall of Science, among other projects.

The administration also took advantage of a large amount of existing space such as transforming an old storage wing into dorms and an old sorority into offices. 

“To be honest I don’t think a plan could have worked much better. The enrollment kicked in and certainly Dan Sullivan made changes in the whole atmosphere and attitude of the place so we went from 1,800 to 2,200,” said Tom Coakley, the vice president for administrative operations. 

As the school transitions to a new president, Bill Fox, many capital projects await completion, including the expansion of the Johnson Hall and the renovation of Griffiths Arts Center. But the university is struggling with a tight budget and trying to remain carbon neutral. 

“We have it all in place so Dr. Fox can walk onto campus,” Coakley said. “We can start in the fall (reviewing) our priorities, wants and needs.” 

Those priorities differ markedly from 1996. According to Coakley, the school might not need to construct new buildings but instead take a step back and look at what programs the school has to build around. “We never can forget that good programs drive good facilities and anytime you get that out of order you lose,” said Coakley, who believes that the school’s top priority is to again fall back on space utilization, which will save money.

A top priority is to renovate Griffiths Arts Center to create more classrooms and space for professors in a program that is quickly growing. 

“The plan is to totally renovate Griffiths,  making a couple of changes. The first would be adding about 19,000 more square feet on the back of Griffiths so that you can expand the two performance pieces in there, the recital hall and the Black Box. Then you would get classrooms in, and then you would bring the people from the Arts Annex back into the space and make that residential,” Coakley said.

The second main priority, which Coakley referred to as a dream, is to renovate the other science wings, Flint Hall, Bewkes Science Hall, Brown Hall and Valentine Hall. 

“It might be tearing it down or renovating, but the concept would be that the remainder of the sciences would have space that equals Johnson Hall. That’s a long way off, but that’s the plan,” said Coakley. 

The glassy, modern Johnson Hall, which is the most recently completed building in the Sullivan era, is one of the more dominate structures on campus. It takes up about 115,000 square feet and was “built to lead the way in science education for the 21st century,” boasts St. Lawrence’s website. The building, home to the biology, chemistry, neuroscience, biochemistry, and psychology majors, has state of the art labs. 

The sciences have become a huge draw for perspective students and many top liberal arts schools have updated their science programs and facilities. For St. Lawrence to continue to compete for applicants who are interested in science, it eventually must update the other science wings. 

Coakley said another possible project for the near future is the renovation of Leithead Field House, which is where baseball, softball and lacrosse practice in bad weather. “If you turned out the lights during the day, you would still see light because of the holes in the walls,” he said in describing Leithead’s rundown condition. However, because of the tight economy, the most promising solution might actually be to just tear the building down.

That’s going to happen this summer to the old health center and Java building, and reducing these spaces is one way to keep St. Lawrence’s carbon neutrality in check. “If you are ever going to get to carbon neutrality, you can’t just keep building,” said Sullivan. 

St. Lawrence has joined 600 other American colleges and universities in committing to carbon neutrality, and Louise Gava, the coordinator of campus sustainability, has actually noticed a decrease in carbon per square feet, a promising statistic. 

She is unsure of the exact reasons for the reductions but says that changes are being made across the campus such as lowering the heat a few degrees in buildings and the use of hybrid cars.

Carbon emissions on campus are broken down into three categories. The first is direct emissions from our heating plant and university vehicles. The second is purchased electricity and the third is everything else. According to Gava, “50 percent of our emissions are (category) 1.” Having that information guides the school as it tackles carbon neutrality. 

Coakley and Gava have many plans and recommendations to discuss with Fox as they look forward to working with him on the balance between facilities and carbon neutrality. As Gava said, “It comes down to thinking holistically and thinking space and carbon as one thing, not as two separate parts on campus.”