Progress Continues on Lee University Complex
Cleveland, TN–Construction crews are working toward completion of the first wing of a more than $13 million science and math classroom and laboratory complex on the Lee University campus.
The new building, which will occupy a prime corner on the front of campus, is being built in two phases, the first of which will include the eastern wing of the complex and contain three levels of classrooms, faculty offices, science laboratories and storage. Phase One is scheduled for completion later this year, in time for the fall 2009 semester, which begins in August.
Workers remove scaffolding from the central commons tower of the new science and math complex.
An open air commons will be the central feature of the complex and will serve as a gateway into the 120 acre campus. Later this summer the 43 year-old former science building will be bulldozed to make way for Phase Two of the project, a two-level classroom wing which will contain a lecture hall as one of its features. It will be joined to the commons tower to create the dominant building on the Cleveland, Tennessee campus.
The multi-million dollar project is the largest of a five-year capital campaign called Press Toward the Mark, the most ambitious in school history. So far the campaign has helped create scholarships and improve campus infrastructure. In addition the campaign has raised funds to expand and modernize the Paul Dana Walker Arena, build a new health clinic and benevolence facility called the Leonard Center and last fall a new School of Religion was dedicated.
Construction of the science and math complex is the first time since the completion of the current science building in 1966 that a new building has been erected on Ocoee Street which fronts the main portion of the campus. In the last 25 years, over 20 new buildings have been built from the ground up on the Lee campus and include – in addition to those already listed – the Dixon Center auditorium, Curtsinger Music Building, Humanities Center, Paul Conn Student Union, Deacon Jones Dining Hall, McKenzie Athletic Center, DeVos Recreation Center, DeVos College of Education, four athletic fields and ten new student residence halls, apartments and townhomes.
