Building Champions

This 15,000-seat basketball arena and special events center includes practice courts, weight rooms, offices, a parking structure for 1,500 cars, and a large public plaza. The $130 million project is named for John Paul Jones (Law ’48), the father of the arena’s lead benefactor, Paul Tudor Jones II (College ’76). The project also received generous commitments from William H. Goodwin, Jr. (Darden ’66), and an anonymous donor, among others. Designed by VMDO Architects and Ellerbe Becket, the facility hosts concerts, conventions, and public ceremonies in addition to men's and women's basketball games.

A New Home for the Fine and Performing Arts

Location of The Arts Grounds

One of the principal goals emerging from the Virginia 2020 long-range planning process is to create an environment at the University in which the arts will thrive. With the help of two of the nation’s leading architects and landscape architects, the University has developed a master plan for the Arts Grounds, a complex of new and expanded arts facilities around the Carr’s Hill area. A major fund-raising effort is under way to finance this complex, which will require a combination of state support, University resources, and private funds.

The Arts Grounds plan, which won a national award of excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects, makes use of concepts from Mr. Jefferson’s Academical Village. Buildings will be clustered around an “open square of grass and trees.” Walkways and public spaces will foster a spirit of community among students, faculty, visiting artists, and arts patrons. On any given evening, students, faculty, and other arts enthusiasts might attend a play in one of the Drama Department’s theaters, a concert or an exhibition opening in the new Center for the Arts, a gallery talk in the new studio art building, an art history lecture in the restored Fayerweather Hall, or a display of student and faculty work in the expanded School of Architecture. Between events or during intermissions, they will stroll through the Arts Common and its amphitheater, an ideal location for outdoor performances and art shows. Together these projects will form a vibrant new locus of creativity.

For more information, visit The Arts Grounds Web site.

An Ambitious Plan for the College's Core Buildings

South Lawn today

Some of the finest liberal arts programs in the country now occupy some of the most rundown buildings at the University. The College of Arts & Sciences intends to address this problem in an ambitious building program on Central Grounds. Encompassing nearly 260,000 square feet of new and renovated space, the $161 million South Lawn Project will accommodate 12,000 student visits per day and provide new homes for eight of the College of Arts & Sciences’ twenty-five departments and one interdisciplinary program.

The project also includes the renovation of two buildings designed by Stanford White: Rouss Hall, to be the new home of the McIntire School of Commerce, and Cocke Hall, to house the classics and philosophy departments. Plans call for two interconnected ensembles of buildings and landscapes. On the south side of Jefferson Park Avenue, on what is now a parking lot, new facilities will be built for the departments of history, religious studies, and politics. On the north side of the street, new and renovated facilities will house four foreign language departments and the sociology department. The new buildings will include public meeting places, high-tech classrooms, flexible workshop spaces, and faculty offices—all designed to promote interdisciplinary teaching and research.

For more information, visit the South Lawn Project Web site.

A Place for Preparing the Teachers of the Future

Rendering of Bavaro Hall

With the lead gift from Daniel Meyers to construct a new building in honor of the late Anthony D. “Wally” Bavaro, the Curry School of Education is charting a new course for the next century. The Curry School’s programs are now dispersed in multiple locations across Grounds and in rental spaces off Grounds. A new facility and the renovation of existing space in Ruffner Hall will support Curry’s efforts to build on its core strengths of teacher education, education technology, and addressing the needs of at-risk populations, and will foster its distinguished programs in higher education, counselor education, education policy, physical education, and sports medicine. Pending approval by the Board of Visitors, the building will be named Bavaro Hall. Mr. Bavaro spent forty years as a history teacher and coach in the public schools of Malden and Chelsea, Massachusetts.

Center for Politics' Future Home

Rendering of The Birdwood Pavilion

The Birdwood Pavilion, one of the University and Albemarle County's last remaining historic properties, is slated to be the future home of the Center for Politics. Located just beyond the grounds of the University on Ivy Road, Birdwood is a stately mansion surrounded by 20 acres of gardens and rolling hills. Sitting on a small knoll with extensive views of the Ragged Mountains, Birdwood is a reminder of an age characterized by widespread enthusiasm for the political processes of our nation. As such, it will be a fitting home for the Center for Politics. Although the story of Birdwood began before the birth of Thomas Jefferson, its course through history is unmistakably interwoven with the Jeffersonian legacy. It is believed that William Garth, a former owner, hired many of the same craftsmen employed by Jefferson to build the Lawn at the University. When completed, Birdwood will provide ample space for lectures, conferences, scholars and staff – not just for the Center for Politics – but for the entire University community.

A Renovated Rouss Hall and a New Building Will Promote Collaboration

Rouss Hall

Nearly thirty years ago, the McIntire School of Commerce moved from Rouss Hall to its current location in Monroe Hall. The school will return to the Lawn when work is completed on a new academic complex that comprises the renovation of Rouss Hall and the construction of an addition behind the Stanford White-designed building. Designed by Hartman-Cox Architects, the planned addition will blend harmoniously with the historic structure. The College of Arts & Sciences will expand into a renovated Monroe Hall. Two classrooms in Rouss Hall will be shared with the College as primary locations for various collaborative programs. Estimated to cost some $57 million, construction of the “Back to the Lawn” project is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2005 and be completed in 2008.

New Space for Nanoscopic Research

Model of Wilsdorf Hall

Engineering Students at U.Va.

A Center for Teaching and Research

Children's Hospital Rendering

A Family-Focused Environment

A Setting for Comprehensive Care

Model for Clinical Cancer Center

A new Clinical Cancer Center will make it possible for the 30,000 Virginians diagnosed with cancer each year to receive comprehensive care based on the most current scientific knowledge. Patients will receive treatment in an environment designed to support their total well-being. Cancer therapies now being developed will be highly individualized and highly selective. They will require cancer centers that can address the characteristic molecular signature of a patient’s cancer, as well as patients’ specific emotional and spiritual needs. This new center will offer essential clinical services—including facilities for diagnosis, infusion, and radiation therapy—in one building close to imaging labs and other critical resources.

More Room for Nursing Education and Scholarship

Site Plan for New Nursing Building

McLeod Hall is more than thirty years old and can no longer meet the School of Nursing’s teaching and research needs. A new 30,000-square-foot companion building will be constructed in close proximity to McLeod Hall, allowing the School of Nursing to grow and to obtain improved spaces for instruction and research. The Commonwealth of Virginia endorsed this project by allocating $6 million toward this $12 million facility. The remaining $6 million is being sought from private donors. Completion of the early design phase is expected by the fall of 2005, followed by groundbreaking sometime in 2007.

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Pointing to New Directions in Medical Instruction

The School of Medicine is planning a new building that will support the latest advances in medical instruction. The facility will house sophisticated multimedia teaching spaces, surrounded by small-group rooms and video-equipped exam rooms that will allow students to review and analyze their interactions with patients. A simulation lab for emergency and clinical medicine will contain computerized patient simulators that can be programmed to exhibit standard medical symptoms and to respond appropriately to treatment. The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation has made a $12.5 million challenge gift for the building.

A Home for New Discoveries

MR-6 Building Rendering

In the past five years, funding from the National Institutes of Health for medical research at U.Va. has doubled. To keep pace with the corresponding need for quality laboratory space, the School of Medicine is completing plans for a 189,000-square-foot building that will house research programs in cancer, immunology, vaccine therapy, and infectious diseases. Approximately a third of its cost will be paid for by Virginia’s general obligation bond issue, which voters approved in November 2002. The Board of Visitors also has committed $20 million to the project as part of an effort to raise the University’s stature as a research institution. This new building will be similar in design to the nearby MR-5, the recently completed medical research building that houses facilities for biomedical engineering, comparative medicine, cardiovascular research, and pathology research.