[JakeP50]

I feel bad for those Annex kids, they probably will shut those down soon. Way to many logistical problems. And if they shut those down the 73 bus route can be used on the inevitable unbroken loop around campus.

[Sly Fox]

I wouldn't count on it. In the history of the school, we have always had a motel or two as a holding zone for overflow students. Anybody remember the big bunny at the Harvey?

[Kiwon]

I feel bad for those Annex kids, they probably will shut those down soon. Way to many logistical problems. And if they shut those down the 73 bus route can be used on the inevitable unbroken loop around campus.

I just got off the phone with an Annex kid.

So far, so good. He likes the Hill City Bistro restaurant there and the new Freedom Dining plan where you can eat multiple times a day at any hour from 7am-10pm weekdays and 9:30am-9pm on weekends. It's an arduous one-minute walk from his room.

His 3-person room with bathroom is spacious for him. He visited the new Commons rooms and said that with the private bathroom that the rooms are about half the size of a typical room on the Hill where he was last year.

He has had no major problems with the Shuttle Buses so far. It's more convenient during class hours than after-class though when the wait times can be up to 30 minutes.

[ATrain]

I feel bad for those Annex kids, they probably will shut those down soon. Way to many logistical problems. And if they shut those down the 73 bus route can be used on the inevitable unbroken loop around campus.

I just got off the phone with an Annex kid.

So far, so good. He likes the Hill City Bistro restaurant there and the new Freedom Dining plan where you can eat multiple times a day at any hour from 7am-10pm weekdays and 9:30am-9pm on weekends. It's an arduous one-minute walk from his room.

His 3-person room with bathroom is spacious for him. He visited the new Commons rooms and said that with the private bathroom that the rooms are about half the size of a typical room on the Hill where he was last year.

He has had no major problems with the Shuttle Buses so far. It's more convenient during class hours than after-class though when the wait times can be up to 30 minutes.

HALF the size of a typical Hill room?
I lived on the hill for a semester and those rooms already seemed pretty small.

[PAmedic]

XTREME whats with those big tarps they're hanging from the grandstand structure at the new softball field? they painting the steel maybe?

Paint

half the grandstand overhang, including columns, now looks white.

at least from what I can see on the interwebcam(s)

[BCXtreme]

I wouldn't count on it. In the history of the school, we have always had a motel or two as a holding zone for overflow students. Anybody remember the big bunny at the Harvey?

But for most of that time, the university was incapable of building enough proper housing on campus to accommodate their enrollment. Lord willing, that will not be the case in the future. With all due respect, Mr. Fox, the Annex is hardly a "holding zone for overflow students." That's when you have a backup residence after primary housing is full, for maybe a couple hundred students that you don't want to waitlist and risk losing to another college. When you have more than a quarter of your "on-campus population" (roughly 2,000 students by my calcs) of all classes voluntarily and persistently living in open-registration residence halls, that's neither a "holding zone" nor "overflow," that's a full-blown official student housing location.

I just got off the phone with an Annex kid.

So far, so good. He likes the Hill City Bistro restaurant there and the new Freedom Dining plan where you can eat multiple times a day at any hour from 7am-10pm weekdays and 9:30am-9pm on weekends. It's an arduous one-minute walk from his room.

His 3-person room with bathroom is spacious for him. He visited the new Commons rooms and said that with the private bathroom that the rooms are about half the size of a typical room on the Hill where he was last year.

He has had no major problems with the Shuttle Buses so far. It's more convenient during class hours than after-class though when the wait times can be up to 30 minutes.

HALF the size of a typical Hill room?
I lived on the hill for a semester and those rooms already seemed pretty small.

A Commons room is actually a little more than 60% the size of a Hill room. As part of that, the closets and sink don't take up space in the room proper the way they do in the old dorms. Plus, you have only one roommate to irritate you and put their stuff in your space.

Regardless, my comment about the Annex had nothing to do with amenities or whether students like it or not.

Paint

half the grandstand overhang, including columns, now looks white.

at least from what I can see on the interwebcam(s)

Saw that, makes sense. Can't have one of these flash typhoons we get washing away the new paint before it's properly dried and permanent.

[Cider Jim]

One of my Honors students posted this pic on FB today:

[BCXtreme]

Medic, if you're interested, JB put some up-close shots of the softball stadium work on his Instagram profile. I don't think you need a login to see them.

One of my Honors students posted this pic on FB today:

Thank goodness they're finally fixing that entrance! Place was a jumbled mess of irregular concrete slabs, gravel, and mud while I was there.

[PAmedic]

Yeah good shots of the new paint and brickwork back there

Was looking at it late last note but I couldn't figure out how to link the photos directly so I went to bed

[bluejacket]

Medic, if you're interested, JB put some up-close shots of the softball stadium work on his Instagram profile. I don't think you need a login to see them.

One of my Honors students posted this pic on FB today:

Thank goodness they're finally fixing that entrance! Place was a jumbled mess of irregular concrete slabs, gravel, and mud while I was there.

Thanks for the update!

[PAmedic]

got some sleep and figured it out... thx @luadjeff on the instagram machine

[PAmedic]

NEW DORM?

new camera angle up now labeled "New Dorm 2" showing the remnants of one of the trailers on the circle

is the Commons2 or what?

everything is different down there now so I don't know what I'm looking at half the time.

that looks to me like the circle perimeter road with the band practice field and 460 in the background?

[PAmedic]

but I'm to understand the layout of the old circle is no longer planned to look like this right?

[BCXtreme]

Medic, that new camera is actually mounted somewhere on the east end of Commons I, looking southward. Yes, Commons II will be where Dorms 14, 15, and 16 are currently located. Liberty applied for the demolition permits just a few days ago.

The diagram from the Fall 2013 Master Plan you posted is indeed no longer current. BUT, the bottom-left L-shaped building on that diagram is still part of the plan, according to the model JFJR posted. My assumption is that that building is Commons II. I would imagine we will be seeing a formal announcement from Liberty sometime soon, possibly in the Journal later this month, because local news recently reported Commons II work would begin in late October.

I was working on editing that diagram to show the Circle area's new layout according to what we can see on the model, but I had to pause the project while I take care of some homework. If I can get it finished, I'll put it up here along with some speculative notes I've written up.

[BCXtreme]

My systems analysis class has me convinced that I will never, never take a job as a systems analyst.

Anyway… After spending entirely too much time scrutinizing JFJR's Master Plan pics, I've altered the Champion Circle diagram from the Fall 2013 plan to match the model (as closely as I can without 360-degree closeups of the model).



I’ve made a couple observations about the six additional dorms being planned around the two Commons towers. It's a little long-winded, so I'd say only those who really enjoy speculation about the Master Plan will care to read it. But here goes...

VMDO recently updated a document on the Jerry Falwell Library with more specifics about their overall planning efforts. The Landmark Tower is mentioned, along with a “new 3,500 bed residential quad.” It’s possible that this is referring to the new buildings we’re seeing down on South Campus, but as a university official recently went on record saying there would be no immediate major construction on South Campus, I believe this is referring to the smaller dorms in the Commons project, and I don’t think the figure includes the two towers. VMDO has barely acknowledged the Mitchell/Matthews project to date, so I think the number is referring only to VMDO’s plans. Not to mention, if that figure did include the towers, then VMDO’s smaller dorms would be only about 180 students per building, which IMHO doesn’t look like enough for their size. (The Hill dorms look much smaller in the model, and they hold around 200.)

So let’s do the math. Six buildings holding 3,500 students comes out to about 580 students per building. If the buildings are four stories tall to match the other VMDO projects, that’s about 145 students per floor (the exact number is probably even, not odd). Assuming the university is going to stick with its long-time goal of returning to 2-bed rooms as standard, that’s about 72 rooms. That’s double the size of a current residence hall, even in Commons I. Unless Liberty is secretly planning a massive overhaul of dorm structure and student leadership (which seems like wishful thinking), that’s way too big to be manageable, which means we’re looking at two halls per floor, probably with the elevators in the middle as they are in the towers. Assuming, of course, that we're still looking at quasi-traditional residence halls, which seems likely as JFJR dissed the apartment/suite-style dorm concept after these buildings were first pictured.

Regardless of the above paragraphs, close examination of the model indicates that there is a connection between the two southwestern buildings (upper left on my diagram). The lakeside dining facility connects the two northwestern buildings (upper right). Therefore, since it can’t be seen clearly in the pictures we have from the model, I went ahead and assumed that the two eastern buildings (lower center) have a similar feature. I assume these connectors are some sort of common area between the two buildings, though I could only guess as to their function. It’s possible that what we’re seeing as six buildings are actually three buildings, each with two wings. Since from what I’ve seen, the concept of a coed common area has been a massive hit, it’s possible that one wing will be male and one female, like the towers. It’s also possible that, if there are indeed two halls per floor in each wing, the wings themselves will be split between one male hall and one female hall. Either would be consistent with Liberty’s current housing philosophy, which allows men and women to live within the same physical building as long as the halls themselves are separately secured and visitation is not allowed.

*Whew* … that was long. Now back to

[Sly Fox]

You guys blow me away. All I know is that I expect to be lost driving around campus in a few weeks.

[Cider Jim]

All I know is that I expect to be lost driving around campus in a few weeks.

Even current faculty get lost driving around campus.

[BCXtreme]

You guys blow me away. All I know is that I expect to be lost driving around campus in a few weeks.

You're lucky to be coming when you are, while a lot of the original landmarks are still around. Judging by those models, in 15-20 years any early alumni who didn't keep up with the college will be able to drive down US-460 and not even realize they just drove past their alma mater.

It's off-topic, but … if I were going to direct an alum to the top four new things they should check out on campus, that list would be…

• Jerry Falwell Library
• LaHaye Student Union
• Food Court @ Reber-Thomas
• DeMoss Computer Lab (2nd floor)

Those four things represent, in my opinion, the most definitive symbols of Liberty's campus improvement, as far as completed projects go. That, and the nine-story Jeffersonian residence hall towering above the old trailers dorms on the Circle.

[PAmedic]

nice map. we should hang out.

couple things:

1. "Mitchell/Matthews project" = "Lakeside Dining/Residence Halls"???

2. "FJR dissed the apartment/suite-style dorm concept after these buildings were first pictured."
I thought everybody loved those apartments? Is that NOT what East campus consists of entirely?

(bear in mind none of that existed back in the day... what we called the "Senior Dorms" were just being constructed at the far south end of campus.

[JakeP50]

Just announced today: The School of Communication and Creative Arts is in the early stages of designing it's own building. According to Dean Mintle he would like it to be finished before this year's freshman graduate. I may be a little biased, digital media major, but I LOVE THIS IDEA. It seems like one of the fastest growing departments on campus and with the hands-on aspect of every major in the department, having our own building is definitely a good idea.

[PAmedic]

nice. congrats on that.

any word on where that one's going?

[JakeP50]

He just told us all to pray about it. This project is just getting started, there aren't even blueprints yet. So no word on where it's going to be, IMO it should be near the stadiums but that area of campus is so crowded already that's probably unlikely. If I were on charge I would tear down the dorms on The Hill and put it there, but I think new dorms are already planned for that area down the road. BC, you know these plans better than I do, any ideas where it could go?

[bluejacket]

Great! Hope that it gets built soon.

[BJWilliams]

As a coms grad, im thrilled by this news as well. I definitely would want to be there for the opening. even in the couple years he has been here, the School of Communication, and especially the COMS department have taken a significant leap forward under Dr. Mintle

[JK37]

As an SMGT alum, I'd love to see an SMGT building.

As an intramural softball alum, I'd love to see an indoor facility for that.

And I went to a Fuddrucker's once. Can we build one of those on campus?