Rendering shows plans for north library addition. Courtesy | Elizabeth Gray

Major renovations to Mossey Library could begin as soon as April as work on the Grewcock Student Union makes way for construction on Christ Chapel plaza.

“The college has been receiving some generous room naming gifts,” Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé said in an email. “We have not yet received a large enough naming gift to move into the construction phase.”

The north library addition will include an outdoor grand staircase with an arcade and undercroft structure, according to Péwé. Indoors, the college plans to renovate the circulation space on the ground level, adding a circular stair, new flooring, and a new dome roof. Other additions include several new study and meeting spaces, two parlors, two lounges, restrooms, interior stair spaces, and a large reading room, entry lobby, classroom, and common room.

“The grand stair will be a great place to study, socialize and sit,” Péwé said. “The undercroft will create shaded studying and socializing spaces and create an impressive east-west axis with the future Loggia and Admissions Welcome Center. The new indoor spaces create much needed study and group study spaces, a classroom, presentation space, and meeting spaces.”

Péwé said there are also plans for a south library addition, not to be started until the north quad projects have been finished. Those renovations will include a bigger reading room, an entry pavilion, a writing center, archive spaces, and an arcade that connects the buildings.

According to Péwé, the union construction crew has added safety fencing in front of the west main entry doors, a temporary divider wall in the formal lounge to minimize construction disruption for those using the room, and a new concrete slab replacing the stones by the far north door of the formal lounge that allows union entry for people walking from Christ Chapel, the Dow Hotel, or Simpson dorm. Péwé said construction is soon to expand into the area between Christ Chapel and the west union doors.

“The Grewcock plaza will not be accessible for the next several months,” Péwé said. “The south door into Grewcock from the colonnade and the lower east door will continue to be accessible.”

Sebastian Castro, a carpenter for Weigand Construction, said construction of the divider walls in the union is progressing nicely.

“We’re just putting in temporary walls to help keep outside construction and dust and stuff from the demo that’s going to happen on the other side of these walls from coming over here and affecting you guys,” Castro said. “These walls will be up for a year or so, and then once we’re done on that side of the wall, they’ll come down.”

Junior Malina Ladzinski said she is not a fan of the separation in the union that impedes walking.

“It’s the gray wall of doom,” Ladzinski joked, referring to the wall blocking off the west main doors. 

Castro said he understands the wall may not look the most appealing right now, but it will not stay that way.

“They’re gonna finish it off and make it look like an actual wall, painted and everything,” Castro said. “You won’t see all the screws.”

Ladzinski said she looks forward to seeing the finished project.

“I am very appreciative that they are improving the college campus, beautifying it and making it look more and more like the Roman decor,” Ladzinski said.

Freshman Maria Kearney said the construction in the union has not affected the time she spends in the building.

“I definitely don’t come in through that door anymore,” Kearney said, referring to the west main entry doors. “But I still come into the union because I just like to go and find my friends because I need a break from all the academics.”

Péwé added the new fenced-off area to the east of Delp Hall makes room for a mock-up groin vault.

“A groin vault is the arched structure of the ‘undercroft,’ the part people would pass under when walking under the reading room of the north library addition,” Executive Assistant and Operations Manager Elizabeth Gray said in an email. 

According to Péwé, that mock-up will take about a month to complete. It is a temporary structure built to test the future construction of eight groin vaults connected to the north library undercroft, which will be in a different location.

“This type of construction is a lost art,” Péwé said. “It will be important to complete a mock-up before the permanent structure is built.”