Above photo: Plans are in motion to renovate the over two-decade-old Lowell E. Davis Memorial Hall, and construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2019. Emily Wunderlich | The Crow’s Nest
By Emily Wunderlich
Inviting, flexible and modern.
That’s how Edward Lewis, USF St. Petersburg construction project manager, envisions the second floor of Lowell E. Davis Memorial Hall, which is in the planning phases of renovation.
“The process starts with a conceptual design,” Lewis said. “We’re trying to work out how that space is used and how we can best utilize it and get the maximum out of it. At the moment, you’ve got a building that was built 25 or 27 years ago, so we need to bring it up to modern sort-of ideas.”
The university received $3.1 million in state funding for the project in 2017 and chipped in an additional $2 million. Although this is only enough to cover the cost of the second floor, Lewis considers the remodel an “ongoing project.”
Lewis expects a rendition of the final product to be complete by fall 2018. BFRANK Studio, LLC, the same architectural company that remodeled The Edge in August, will tentatively begin construction the following spring.
To minimize disruptions to students and staff, Lewis predicts renovations will be split into two phases over the course of four to six months.
“There’s never an ideal time to do a project of this size,” Lewis said. “Nobody wants to over-stress or put students out from their routine, but there will be an element of that because we’re going to be remodeling the building.”
“Unfortunately we’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette in this case,” he said.
In addition to classrooms, offices and part of the university’s IT department, the 34,000-square-foot space will include standardized room dimensions to reflect class sizes as mandated by the state.
“We’re working closely with the registrar’s office to make sure that what we design, when it goes back in, meets the classroom requirements for size,” Lewis said. “As an example — I know it must happen sometimes — a classroom that seats 50 people will have 6 people in the class, or the other way around.”
Lewis said the university is also exploring different systems of construction, such as demountable walls that can be moved from room to room.
“The technology that goes into this is fantastic,” he said.
As one of the largest teaching buildings on campus, Davis Hall houses the largest college on campus: the College of Arts and Sciences.
The building has undergone several minor maintenance jobs since its opening in the early 1980s.
“If we had a bottomless pit (of money), I’d be doing the whole building,” said Lewis, who once heard a student compare the hall’s interior to a scene from the 1980s horror film “The Shining.” “But even that would be difficult because we haven’t got enough space.”
Header photo: Emily Wunderlich | The Crow’s Nest
