Fill out our Daily Orange reader survey to make our paper better


On Campus

Newhouse faculty to receive briefing on National Veterans Resource Complex utility work

Daily Orange File Photo

Utility work includes directing utility lines from the Quad to the NVRC construction site.

By Sam Ogozalek

A town hall meeting detailing utility work that could involve excavation of a lawn near the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will be held for faculty on Thursday.

The meeting is scheduled to start at 3:15 p.m. in Newhouse 3, said Susan Nash, Newhouse’s director of administration on Wednesday.

Nash, in an email sent last week to the school’s faculty, said a university project will direct utilities from the “Quad/main campus area” to the new National Veterans Resource Complex site. The project could affect the greenspace between Newhouse and Crouse Drive.

The NVRC is a $62.5 million project that will house SU’s veterans programs at the intersection of South Crouse and Waverly avenues.

“Our whole lawn facing the administration building will be dug up, sidewalks closed, loading dock disrupted, etc. (I don’t even have all the information yet),” Nash wrote in the email.



The town hall is being organized by SU’s Office of Campus Planning, Design and Construction, according to a forwarded email from Michele Pirro, executive assistant to Vice President and Chief Facilities Officer Pete Sala. Pirro’s email was included in Nash’s email to faculty.

“This work will take place beginning in mid-February and is expected to continue throughout the summer,” Pirro wrote.

Construction on the NVRC is expected to be completed by the spring 2020 semester. SU initially expected to finish construction by the spring or summer of 2019.

The project was pushed back because NVRC fundraising took longer than expected, said Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation Mike Haynie last semester.

Haynie tweeted a photo of the construction site and an excavator digging up dirt on Wednesday.

“On a cold & snowy day @SyracuseU something historic and nationally important is now real. Without pomp or circumstance, just a few minutes ago the first backhoe dug the first hole for what will become SU’s National Veteran Resource Complex,” Haynie wrote.





Top Stories