What You Need to Know in Fall 2026: Facilities

The term “summer break” doesn’t apply to campus construction. While University of Maryland students were interning, taking classes, working or finding a few moments to relax this summer, crews across the UMD campus were installing electrical systems, laying down pavement and putting up walls. 

Stanley R. Zupnik Hall, a sleek new home for several engineering disciplines and institutes, is nearing completion; the Health and Human Sciences Complex in Cole Field House is in progress; and construction of the new central energy plant and upgrades along Yale Avenue are among the biggest undertakings that students, faculty and staff are seeing in progress as they return to campus this week. 

Other projects around campus include the replacement of sections of the roof on the University Health Center and Adele H. Stamp Student Union, renovations to labs at the Atlantic Building and the installation of 50 new concourse televisions at SECU Stadium.

Learn about what’s happening behind the scenes on these major projects—and what you can expect to see this fall as a result. 

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Quantum Technology Center and student organizations based in the A. James Clark School of Engineering will move in Spring 2027 to this new facility, named for its benefactor, D.C.-area businessman and entrepreneur Stanley R. Zupnik ’59. Roads are open in front of the building and fences are down. Most of the remaining work is landscaping; crews are waiting for slightly cooler September weather to get plants into the dirt.   

Construction is active at the future home of the School of Public Health and the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, attached to Jones-Hill House. A staging area is set up on the west side of the building, as are fences along the sidewalk on Campus Drive. During the fall semester, workers will largely focus on interior work, including installation of walls for labs, classrooms and offices, as well as mechanical and electrical systems. 

An improved central energy plant near the intersection of Baltimore Avenue and Rossborough Lane is scheduled to begin operation later this fall as part of the NextGen Energy Program. The renovated facility will rely on a high-efficiency, renewable-fuel-ready turbine to generate both electricity and steam. A temporary boiler plant now in use will be removed at the end of the year. Eventually, the NextGen program will reduce UMD’s greenhouse gas emissions by 23% and save 50% of the total water usage the current plant requires annually.

Renovations on one of the facilities that provides chilled water for air conditioning, as well as steam and hot water for surrounding buildings, will last for roughly 18 months. The work, on the building on Stadium Drive across from the IDEA Factory, will replace existing mechanical equipment with new, more efficient equipment.

Workers this fall will start building a bike lane and realign parking spaces and sidewalks to create safer pathways for bikers and pedestrians from Ritchie Coliseum to the new Discovery House. The project will work in phases to reduce loss of parking spots. 

On North Campus, Ellicott Hall will be closed for the fall semester while it gets new windows, new lighting fixtures in hallways, renovated bathrooms with more privacy and updated finishes, upgrades to the electrical system and—likely most exciting to future residents—window heat pump units that will make the building fully air-conditioned.