What You Need to Know in Fall 2021: Facilities
Construction on Major Buildings Continues
The new 70,000-square-foot School of Public Policy Building comes to life, with Memorial Chapel as its neighbor.
Photo by Eric Kruszewski
If you weren’t distracted by the throngs of students streaming to class for the first time in a long time, perhaps the giant color-changing window in the new IDEA Factory or the gleaming high-rises next to Maryland Stadium caught your eye.
While many students, faculty and staff were away during the pandemic, a flurry of campus construction continued, with several buildings scheduled to open this fall.
Bill Olen, executive director of planning and construction for Facilities Management, leads Maryland Today on a virtual tour of some of the major construction projects at the University of Maryland.
Chemistry Building
Expected to be completed in 2023, the new Chemistry Building will be home to research laboratories, conference and meeting rooms, and office space. Wing 1 is being demolished, and will be replaced with a 105,000-square-foot building that will house more research space, open areas meant to spark collaboration and air-handling systems designed for lab work.
Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle
Cole Field House
Jones-Hill House, the athletic portion of this 438,000-square-foot campus landmark, opened this summer. The home of Maryland Football includes the indoor practice facility, Athletics offices, locker rooms, dining and workout areas, and outdoor practice fields. The remaining space will be reserved for academics.
Photo by John T. Consoli
E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory
Connected to the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building, the E.A. Fernandez IDEA (Innovate, Design and Engineer for America) Factory will be the four-story, 60,000-square-foot home to the Quantum Technology Center, the Maryland Robotics Center, the Alfred A. Gessler Rotorcraft Center, a café, and spaces for student teams to work and a student-run business incubator. The completed façade features a striking wall of windows with a special coating that reflects light in myriad colors. The building is slated to be finished by the end of 2021.
Photo by John T. Consoli
Heritage Community
Pyon-Chen Hall is the first building of North Campus’ Heritage Community to open, housing 450 students across six stories. It’s named for Pyon Su, the first Korean student to receive a university degree in the U.S., in 1891, and Chunjen Constant Chen, the first Chinese student to enroll at Maryland, in 1915. An adjacent residence hall, Johnson-Whittle Hall, is expected to open next fall; so is a 70,000-square-foot dining hall, the first one to open on campus since the South Campus Dining Hall in 1974. It will seat roughly 1,000 people and will have 10 to 12 culinary stations.
Photo by John T. Consoli
School of Public Policy Building
The new, 77,000-square-foot home for the School of Public Policy, located between the Rossborough Inn and the Lee Building, is expected to open next summer. One highlight will be an architectural deliberation chamber modeled in the spirit of rooms at the United Nations. Installation of the exterior glass is slated for completion this fall, and interior work will continue.
Photo by John T. Consoli
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