The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors meets four times a year with the most recent event having taken place the first week of March. The Buildings and Grounds Committee were presented with changes to the major capital plan for 2023.
“We revise the capital plan every year,” said Colette Sheehy, Senior Vice President for Operations and State Government Relations. “We start out with this meeting as a conversation, a discussion, questions, anything.”
Additions to the plan come from each of the University of Virginia’s schools and units with guidance from a capital advisory committee that reviews each potential project.
The full Board of Visitors will approve the amended capital plan at its meeting in June.
“Last June, we started out with an approved plan that was $2.9 billion,” Sheehy said. “Since that time we’ve completed about $380 million worth of work.”
That includes renovations to Gilmer Hall. Four other projects are being removed from consideration, but five new ones are proposed.
“So we’ll end up with $2.5 billion as the capital program that we would ask ultimately for approval in June,” Sheehy said.
Of that $2.5 billion, 39 percent are projects currently under construction and another 39 percent are in the planning stages. The remaining $557.4 million are for projects not yet initiated.
Projects that will be completed this year include the first phase of infrastructure work to support the full Ivy Corridor complex and the renovations of Alderman Library. Sheehy had news from the UVA librarian.
“John Unsworth recently shared with me that the plan is to allow students to study in Alderman after Thanksgiving break while they are moving books in and whatnot and then be completely open in the spring semester,” Sheehy said.
The Contemplative Commons will be complete in early 2024 along with the School of Data Science. Many other projects will be completed in the summer of 2024, including a second residence hall on Brandon Avenue.
Planning and design work will be initiated for three projects including $7 million for planning and design for more residence halls to house second-year students as called for in UVA’s strategic plan.
“We hope to finish our work with a consultant by the end of this academic year and have a view forward for how we would implement the second-year housing initiative that’s in the 2030 plan,” Sheehy said.
The two other projects are a University-wide data center to be located at Fontaine Research Park as well as a public safety building.
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