LYNCHBURG - Lynchburg College officials plan to spend $2.5 million on 40 renovation projects large and small around campus this summer, including a $650,000 expansion of the school's education building.

The addition of 5,000 square feet to the Thompson Education Building will serve a number of purposes, said Dave Fisher, director of the school's physical plant. Doubling the space in the building will provide a place for faculty offices, which in recent years had moved into on-campus houses. Those houses then can be used, as intended, for student residential spaces.

The building accommodates about 675 education and nursing students every year, a combined enrollment of nearly 20 percent of the student body, according to the college.

The project began in May and is expected to finish before the start of classes in September, Fisher said.

Although most summers are busy construction times, he said, the usual budget is less than half of what is being spent this season. Among amenities students returning this fall will find are a renovated bookstore and cooler dorms, Fisher said.

This week, the school completed a face-lift on its bookstore in the Burton Student Center, including new carpeting, lights, paint and shelving. The largest, and perhaps most appreciated, project is an $800,000 air-conditioning addition to dormitories at Hundley Hall, Fisher said. It is the last dorm without air conditioning.

"They [students] scream every April and May, and all through the month of September, because it's just terribly hot up there," he said. "Finally, that building will be a little bit more habitable."
Christa Desrets is a staff writer at The News & Advance in Lynchburg.