News
Schoonover Center’s First Phase Delayed
By: Sara Brumfield | Athens Messenger
Posted on:
The completion of the Ohio University’s new home for Scripps School of Communication has been delayed once more as the contractor found unexpected problems during the Phase I construction.
The former Baker Center on East Union Street is being repurposed to serve as the Schoonover Center, which will house the Scripps College of Communication’s five schools and the WOUB Center for Public Media.
The first phase of the center was originally slated to be
Now university officials say they hope the first phase will be done by the end of the year.
Joe Lalley, OU senior associate vice president for Information Technologies and Administrative Services, said that the project was delayed “because a number of the items identified in the project punch list took the contractor longer than expected to complete.”
The first departments that are slated to move into the renovated building are the dean’s office, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, and the School of Media Arts.
According to Lalley, academic
The Schoonover Center will consolidate the communication schools into one building.
The Messenger previously reported that the college of communication is housed in 11 different buildings across the Athens campus.
The former Baker Center was constructed in 1922, which closed in December 2006 when the new Baker Center opened on Oxbow Trail.
The Schoonover Center is named after OU alumnus Steven Schoonover and his wife, Barbara, who contributed $7.8 million toward the project in 2008