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Sawdust FlyingSawdust Flying at Ole Miss

Mississippi Business Journal / November 2011

With student enrollment soaring, numerous construction projects are underway or in the planning stage at the University of Mississippi. Adding to the challenge at Ole Miss is drastic cuts in state funding, forcing the university to maximize all space and get the most out of every construction dollar.
Ian Banner, director of facilities planning and university architect, said Over the past several years Ole Miss - which set a new fall enrollment record this year of 20,824, up 1,278 students from last fall - has taken a hard look at its existing facilities, ensuring that they were being fully utilized.
“We’ve done a pretty good job with that,” Banner said, who added that the cuts in state funding to the university have made facility planning even more challenging. “Now, we’re looking to build to accommodate our growing student population.”
The latest construction project announced is $3.8-million renovation of the former Walmart building to accommodate a roughly 7,6oo-square-foot math lab, 8,670 square feet of open space for university events and prepping another 40,000 square feet for future office space.
Ole Miss has owned the former Walmart building, located on Jackson Avenue just north of the campus, for nearly a decade. Encompassing roughly 95,ooo square feet, the university's first job was to tighten up the building's envelope, adding a new roof and insulation. The university then began utilizing the space, moving the civil engineering program into an 11,ooo-square­foot space and using it to store the theater arts’ large stage sets.
Drawings for the latest renovations to the facility were produced in-house. Bids were expected to be in and construction scheduled to start this month. The university has numerous projects either underway or planned, some that dwarf the Walmart job. The largest project underway is the construction of a three-building, 8oo-plus-bed student residential complex. In total, the facilities encompass 222,000 square feet . Pulled together by a central courtyard, the buildings are structural steel, metal frame, metal roof and light-weight concrete. The primary exterior materials are masonry and stucco with glass fiber­ reinforced concrete.
The project's designer is a joint venture of Cooke Douglass Farr Lemons Architects & Engineers, P.A., (CDFL) of Jackson and Eley Guild Hardy Architects of Biloxi and Jackson. The contractor is Jackson-based Harrell Contracting Group, LLC.
The new student residential complex is expected to open in July 2012.
There is also a new 5o,ooo­ square-foot facility in the University of Mississippi Research Park. Expected to be completed this month, the facility's designer is a joint venture between CDFL and Howorth Architecture of Oxford. The contractor is
Montgomery Martin Contractors of Memphis, Tenn. Even larger, more ambitious projects are in varying stages of design. A few of the planned future projects include:
» New student union - Plans for a new university student union are "fairly complete," according to Banner. The cost of the two- to three-year is expected to be approx­
imately $45 million.
» Renovation of old law school - Last January, Ole Miss opened its new School of Law. The university is now drafting plans for renovations to the old law school. The first phase, ringing in at $7 million, will convert existing space into classrooms. Ole Miss hopes to have this project completed in the spring of 2013.
» New mechanical plant - To keep infrastructure apace of enrollment, the university is proposing a new mechan­ ical plant. To be located on Gertrude Avenue, the project is expected to ring in at $13 million, with completion planned for the spring of 2013.