Construction on the Concourse leading to Magnolia Avenue is still in the works.
However, according to project manager Buster Reese, the construction should be finished by the end of this semester, meaning students will have open access to Magnolia Avenue again in the spring.
Currently, parts of the Concourse between the Haley Center and Magnolia Avenue are still closed off.
"We're trying to open up behind us as we finish," Reese said. "We're fixing to open the first phase from Thach. It'll be like the first third of the path, and they're setting up the irrigation and landscape now.
"When that's done we'll pull the fence and take the temporary sidewalks down so that we can give back as much of the area to the students as much as we can. So we'll be working our way toward Magnolia and opening up behind us."
The original project was titled Tiger Concourse. According to Catherine Love, design project manager, additional landscaping elements have since been added to the agenda, and the cumulative project is titled Tiger Carroll Ginn.
When completed it will contain a number of features, including a new parking lot next to Broun Hall, a bus loop and bus shelter on Magnolia Avenue and a fountain across from Dunstan Hall.
According to Reese, the plan for a new parking lot has already been completed.
Love said the fountain will serve as one of the design's most interesting aspects.
"It's not really a fountain in the traditional sense," Love said. "There's an upper pool and there's a lower plaza, and the water spills over the top of the wall and falls down into the lower plaza. It's more of a waterfall than a fountain. Down at the base of it there's a sunken seating area. It's really gonna be one of a kind. It's really, really nice."
Love said the construction, which began last May, has been planned for years.
"Back in 2002 we started a family of projects," Love said. "We called them the pedestrian family for lack of a better term. But it was a 10-year project to improve the pedestrian experience at Auburn, and that's when we closed Thach Avenue. We closed Roosevelt Drive. We did some work up around building science and architecture."
Love said the concourse project was the last phase in the initiative that's been underway for nine years.
Love said the Board of Trustees appropriated $2 million for the Tiger Concourse project in 2002. An additional $500,000 was donated by Samuel Ginn, member of the Board of Trustees and namesake of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, for additional landscaping elements, such as the fountain.
Love said she thinks the completed project will be worth the wait.
"All kinds of landscaping and benches and bicycle racks, and it should be a real beautiful addition to campus," Love said.
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