Georgia State University officials announced a big step this week in their ongoing efforts to dominate downtown Atlanta and tie the urban campus together as a cohesive academic organism.
The school plans to tear down an 80-year-old building that houses Kell Hall and replace it with a green corridor, with a lawn where students, faculty and staff might gather and chill, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports. The news came yesterday during GSU president Mark Becker's annual "State of the University" address. The park-like lawn will be part of GSU's new campus master plan, which school leaders hope will transform the core of the university. And it's not the only good news to come from GSU of late.
In his address, Becker said the proposed green will link Woodruff Park through campus to a courtyard at the center of a research complex anchored by the Petit Science Center, the newspaper reports. A timeline for demolition and construction of the park wasn't specified. Way back in 1946, Kell Hall (a former parking garage) became GSU's first permanent building, according to an interesting GSU rundown of the property's history. Since then, the building has hosted everything from a small sawmill to a laboratory with free-roaming turtles.
In addition to the campus green plans, GSU is adding an 18-story tower for student apartments. And last month, the school broke ground on the new GSU College of Law, a modernistic 200,000-square-foot structure to rise about a block from Woodruff Park. Highlights of that project will include 21 state-of-the-art classrooms, a 230-seat "formal moot courtroom" and a "law library of the future."
· GSU announces central campus lawn [Atlanta Business Chronicle]
· Glassy GSU Law Building To Break Ground This Week [Curbed Atlanta]
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