Dorm Construction Will Link Main West and Edens

The Duke University Board of Trustees gave the final go-ahead Friday to the start of construction of a $37.5 million residence hall project that will link the Gothic revival architecture of West Campus to the more modern Edens Quadrangle and mark the beginning of a major overhaul of upper-class residential life. The 350-bed project, called the West-Edens Link (WEL), will be constructed where Wannamaker Drive now runs and on part of a large parking lot. Wannamaker Drive and the Edens A parking lot will be closed May 22 and construction will begin soon afterward with completion scheduled before the start of classes in the fall of 2002. The trustees, meeting at their annual commencement weekend gathering, approved the design of the project, the budget and financial plan and gave authorization to proceed with construction. KieranTimberlake Associates of Philadelphia is the designer and the construction manager is Beacon-Skanska Construction Co. of Boston. The project is the first phase of a $75 million endeavor to increase and enhance residential housing capacity on West Campus and eventually turn the Trent Hall dormitory on the north side of campus into academic offices. The new dormitory will be followed by the renovation of Main West residence halls, starting with Kilgo, Crowell and Craven dormitories, all of which were built in 1930 as part of the original Gothic West Campus. The project will actually consist of three buildings, two of which will have pitched roofs with gables and buttresses. The other building will have a flat roof that will serve as a terrace walkway from the north to a large tower anchoring the building on the south. The buildings will use "Duke blend" brick and some Duke stone, with slate on the pitched roofs and lead-camed windows. "Our objective is to recall the feel of the original Duke buildings while not mimicking designs that are unique to their era," Judith White, director of Residential Program Review, said in a memo to the trustees. The new residence halls, which will have a total of 180 air-conditioned double and single rooms, will be built on a slope from the higher Gothic dormitories to the north leading to the Edens Quadrangle 50 feet lower to the south. Edens was completed in 1966. The rooms in the new residences will be more spacious than most dormitory rooms at Duke -- 12 feet by 12 feet for singles and 12 feet by 20 feet for doubles -- and will have 9-foot high ceilings and generous, opening windows. Hallways will be 6 feet wide. The five-level tower, which will have an elevator, will be the site of new social and activity space open to all students. At least two levels of the tower will have an eating establishment. "We see students being drawn to the WEL tower from both directions, thus bringing Edens into a continuous complex of upper-class residence halls," White said. "In addition to our primary goal - improving the upper-class residential area - we want the West Edens Link to be an exciting addition to the entire Duke campus."