Avila University begins another round of construction

Avila University got started Monday on a construction initiative with a “breakthrough” ceremony that involved hammering through an interior wall of the school’s Hooley-Bundschu Library.

The effort involves three capital projects:

• The renovation of 17,750 square feet of the library into a Learning Commons. The library’s new layout and technology are designed to encourage small study groups, student collaboration and group projects, while providing quiet places where students can study alone.

Also included are the Martha Smith, CSJ, Archives & Research Center, which will house the archives of the U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Avila’s Women Religious Collection and the university’s own archives.

• Labs, classrooms and equipment in a new Science & Health Complex named for Sister Marie Joan Harris, provost and vice-president for academic affairs at Avila. The compex, which will help prepare students for health-related careers, will be in about 15,000 square feet of renovated space in O’Rielly Hall.

• A 130-space parking lot.

“The campus already has undergone more physical additions ... in the last five years — including new residence halls, dining halls, athletics fields and a pavilion — than it did in the previous 50,” Avila President Ron Slepitza said in a news release.

“With the completion of these projects in August, Avila further positions itself as a beacon of higher education in the Kansas City area and region and as we approach our centennial in 2016.”

Avila officials announced Monday that the school has met a challenge grant and will receive $1 million for the Learning Commons and the science/health complex from the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation. That completes the $7 million needed for those two projects, a university spokesman said.

The parking lot is funded by a bond issue.

The new construction is part of a larger initiative being funded through Avila’s $43.3 million Centennial Campaign. Avila is about halfway through that seven-year fund-raising effort. Anyone who would like to donate can go to www.avila.edu/give.

This story was originally published March 31, 2014 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Avila University begins another round of construction."