Liberty University is starting work on a new road that will one day connect to the planned Crossroads Colonnade shopping center.
The road — which in its final form will extend from LU campus east to U.S. 29 opposite the airport — is part of an earlier agreement struck between the school, project developer AIG Baker and Campbell County.
LU is responsible for constructing the section of the four-lane road that bridges the Norfolk Southern tracks, just south of the U.S. 29/U.S. 460 interchange.
The remainder will be built by AIG, which recently delayed its own start date due to the nation’s slowing economy. Current timetables have the Alabama-based company assuming control of the property in early 2010, with construction on the 900,000-square-foot Crossroads center to finish sometime in 2011.
LU started moving dirt on the bridge project this week. Burleigh’s Construction, of Concord, has been contracted to do the work.
Liberty also is moving forward with several on-campus projects, including the construction of a Barnes & Noble, development of a paintball field and the ongoing expansion of the DeMoss Learning Center.
At the same time, the school has been flooding city planners with designs for new endeavors, including the vehicular and pedestrian tunnels recently approved as part of the expanded campus master plan.
Other projects submitted for review are an indoor soccer facility, new tennis courts, and new athletic fields along the base of Candlers Mountain, which will require the construction of an exit from U.S. 460.
“We don’t know the meaning of the word vacation,” Lee Beaumont, LU’s director of auxiliary services, said of the brisk pace being kept by the school construction department this summer. “People keep telling us there’s a recession, but no one at LU has seen it.”
LU has been experiencing rapid student growth for a number of years, and recently capped enrollment for the first time in the school’s history.
It expects to welcome about 11,300 students this fall.
The new projects being relayed to City Hall already have been approved as part of the campus’s revised master plan. As such, the designs will require only administrative review from planning staff going forward.
The majority of the projects are without firm start dates.
The two biggest initiatives, the vehicular and pedestrian tunnels, are still awaiting approval from Norfolk Southern Corp.
The dual tunnels will both dip under NS tracks to empty out onto Wards Road. The rail company recently announced it would send a team to Lynchburg to view the proposed building sites and discuss further steps.
No dates for those meetings have been set.
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