Students arriving for the fall semester may notice using Anderson Street to enter campus will be pretty difficult. Actually, impossible.
The street has been stripped of its asphalt and is currently under construction to enhance the campus entrance as part of the DePauw 2020 plan. It will be unusable until December.
The street construction in May when the city of Greencastle began replacing utilities below the street, such as waterlines and sewers. DePauw has since taken over the reconstruction.
Now, workers continue to jackhammer the street to remove asphalt and the limestone that lies below it.
Vice President of Finance and Administration Brad Kelsheimer said the total cost of rebuilding the campus entrance is estimated at around $2.2 million. DePauw will be reimbursed for 80 percent of the costs through the state's Stellar Communities grant, which allotted Greencastle with $19 million for city renovations.
To reduce some of the pressure on the DePauw Housing Office on Anderson Street, upperclassman moving into campus before the start of classes on Wednesday will check into housing in the lobby of Peeler Art Center. The largest concentration of upperclassmen live in the West Neighborhood close to Peeler.
While the construction is a nuisance for many, Housing Director Greg Dillon is staying positive.
"In some respects, that's been helpful," Dillon said. "When we get busy with check-ins, our [Anderson Street] office gets a bit cramped."
With the road entirely blocked off, students living in housing located next to the road find it difficult to travel anywhere on campus without taking an indirect route.
"The construction is annoying," said Schuyler Cook, a senior. Cook was living on campus this summer in Lucy Rowland Hall and is now moving to Rector Village, just across from the housing office.
"We weren't allowed to walk across Anderson Street," she said. We had to walk clear down to East College and around to get to the housing office. It just seems like it is taking much longer than it needs to."
Dillon understands that the construction has caused problems for students over the summer, but said the housing office is doing their best to accommodate students.
"We're more concerned about our students living along Anderson Street and will continue to work with them individually to make their experience as good as we possibly can," Dillon said.
President Brian Casey said that those involved with the project planned for a four-to-five-month project all along.
Rob Harper, Assistant Director of Facilities and Grounds, confirmed that Anderson Street is on schedule so far and will be up and running by Dec. 1 as planned.
For now, students will have to make do. The Office of Student Life has released a map on the DePauw website that highlights alternate routes onto campus in order to help freshman arriving.