LITTLE ROCK — Trustees of the University of Arkansas System on Tuesday approved requests by campus officials in Fayetteville and Monticello to move forward on projects involving historic properties.
The trustees’ Buildings and Grounds Committee, meeting by conference call, approved UA-Fayetteville’s recommendation to hire partnering firms Wittenberg, Delony & Davidson Architects, based in Little Rock, and HBRA Architects in Chicago to design a renovation and expansion of the John A. White Engineering Hall.
The committee also approved the gift of the historic Taylor Log House in Drew County to the University of Arkansas at Monticello, which campus officials plan to transform into an educational center and tourist site.
Fayetteville Chancellor G. David Gearhart told trustees that the first phase of the engineering hall project will focus on the design of the 58,000-square-foot existing structure plus a 12,000-square-foot addition that would come at an undetermined date.
“We’re going to be designing it so we can add to it down the road,” Gearhart said, explaining that the expansion would follow the original design of the building, completed in 1927.
“We don’t have the resources [for the expansion] nor do we have them identified, so no, we don’t have a timetable for that,” he said.
The project includes the transformation of 9,200 square feet of existing space on the first floor for the university’s new department of biomedical engineering, Gearhart said.
This phase of the work, which includes upgrading the first floor’s heating and cooling systems, has an estimated cost of $4.35 million, Gearhart said.
Work on the biomedical engineering labs is expected to start this fall with the completion of the entire suite scheduled for August 2013, according to the university.
White Hall, built in a Collegiate Gothic style recommended by the university’s 1925 master plan, has high architectural and historical value that calls for restoration, according to the university.
It is a primary contributing building to the University of Arkansas Campus Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Meanwhile, UA-Monticello plans to restore the Taylor Log House in phases, with the first stage encompassing “extensive research and planning and to secure and stabilize the structure and home site,” according to the university’s request for qualifications for specialized architectural services.
The university accepted the donation of the house and surrounding 4.66 acres from John Hancock Inc. and Myatt Farms Inc.
The university is seeking historical architects who will prepare a structure report for the house and help develop a master plan that will “incorporate the house as a part of a multifunctional educational center” for UA-Monticello students and other educational institutions, according to the request for qualifications.
“The university has been working with our local historical society for over two years to get to this point,” Monticello Chancellor Jack Lassiter toldthe trustees. “It has very much historical significance for the area.”
The projected cost to renovate the house and build parking lots is $2 million, Lassiter said. The university plans to pay for the project through grants and nonuniversity funds, he said.
The university already received a $100,000 planning grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Commission, Lassiter said.
The house, hewn out of cypress trunks about 1846, and its surrounding Hollywood Plantation are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Although it has been altered, it is the last-known example in the state’s lower Delta of an intact two-story log dogtrot residence, according to the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program’s description of the site.
The house served as the center of a plantation where cotton was raised with the help of a large slave labor force until the onset of the Civil War, according to the preservation program.
The house was moved in the late 19th century from Bayou Bartholomew to its current location, and some interior changes were made in the early 20th century. But the hewn logs remain throughout the building and have not been substantially altered, according to the program.
Also on Tuesday, trustees approved:
The University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton’s recommendation of the Fort Smith firm MAHG Architecture to design a new $10 million technology center.The planned center will house a “one-stop work force center” that will provide training opportunities in technical programs to those who are unemployed and underemployed, according to the community college.
UA-Fayetteville’s recommendation of CDI Contractors of Little Rock as the construction manager/general contractor for an estimated $7.7 million in upgrades to the Science Building.
The five-story, 54,000-square-foot building, which opened in 1968, provides labs for freshmen and sophomore chemistry students. In 2010, the university began renovating the building, and this phase will complete the renovation of classroom and labs and offices, among other spaces.
A request from the UA System’s Agriculture Division to renovate and expand its Soil Test Laboratory in Marianna.
Rick Roeder, associate director of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, told trustees that the 13,000-square-foot laboratory opened in 1954 and “not much has been done to it in the last 60 years.” The remodel and addition of 5,000 square feet is projected to cost $2.3 million, Roeder said. “The building has modern equipment, but the space we have ... is totally inadequate,” he said.
A request by the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith to sell 2.25 vacant acres at 6175 Grand Ave. for $1 million.
UAFS, when it was Westark College, purchased the property in 1997 for $773,000 with the intent of building a facility that it would share with the Arkansas State Police and the state Crime Laboratory. The project never materialized, UAFS Chancellor Paul Beran told trustees. The $1 million offer from P&F LLC is $100,000 more than the property’s appraised value, Beran said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 07/26/2012