The faculty and administrative offices are already in use in the new Moore Psychology Building, and the building will most likely be fully operational by the Fall term, Psychology Department Chair Howard Hughes said yesterday.
In addition, while finishing touches are being completed on Moore, the Berry Library Project and the construction of a parking garage on Lebanon Street are in full swing.
Hughes said Moore will be dedicated in the end of September, and all classrooms and laboratories in the building are expected to be open in the fall. Some of the labs are already open.
"I think this is the most beautiful academic building I have ever been in," Hughes said. "A lot of the people in my department have worked in Gerry Hall for their entire careers, and it's an ugly, depressing place to have to be in all day, and this is beautiful."
He said the Pizzagalli Construction Company crews are still completing final work on two lecture halls, some laboratory facilities, the basement and the entrance of the building.
"The construction company would very much like to get the construction manager onto another job, so as I understand it, they're kind of as anxious to get finished as we are to have them finished," Hughes said.
In addition to technologically "smart" classrooms in Moore, Hughes said there are two auditoriums that seat 225 people in an arrangement that prevents any students from being more than 50 feet away from the lecturer. The building also houses a library on its fourth floor that will mostly be used as a study space.
Hughes said one of the most exciting aspects of Moore is something that it will house in a concrete bunker -- a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine, the retail value of which is "well over" $1.5 million.
He said the College's psychology department will be "one of the few academic departments in the country that have a facility like this," to be used for research based upon "non-invasive imaging of brain activity in human volunteers."
In addition to allowing upper level students to use the machine for classes and honors theses, Hughes said he expected researchers from the Boston area and throughout New England to come to the College and rent time to use the facility.
While the Moore project is winding down, construction crews are in the midst of extensive work on the approximately $41 million Berry Library project.
Berry Project Manager Philip Chaput said the construction crew has completed the steel structure of the building and is pouring concrete floors into the building's first three levels on the east side, facing Wheeler residence hall. It has started enclosing the building with concrete block walls on the west side, and it will begin placing copper roofing on the structure in the first week of August.
In addition, the crew has been working on electrical, plumbing and mechanical projects inside Berry.
Chaput said he expects the building to be "substantially complete" in July 2000, one month later than the originally planned completion date.
"We're a little bit behind [schedule], but nothing alarming ... Everything has actually been going fairly smoothly," Chaput said.
College Real Estate Officer Woody Simonds said the 17-month, $10 million project to build the Lebanon Street parking garage has been underway for four months and is "basically on schedule at this point."
Simonds said the construction crew is working on the concrete foundations of the garage and will begin working on the steel structure of the building in the beginning of September, slightly behind schedule.
The parking garage is a joint venture of the town of Hanover and the College. Dartmouth's Real Estate Office is overseeing the construction. It will be located between the Hanover Park building and Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop.
