MEDIA ADVISORY: KU Hall Center plans Sept. 4 groundbreaking at historic Powerhouse

WHAT: University of Kansas officials and donors to the Kansas University Endowment Association will break ground for the new $3.76 million Hall Center for the Humanities building. The program will feature the setting of the first stone at the historic site where the new building will stand. The new construction will preserve part of the 19th-century KU campus, while adding a landmark of architectural distinction to the university.

WHEN: 3:30-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 4. Program begins at 4 p.m.

WHERE: Site of the new Hall Center for the Humanities at the old Powerhouse, 900 Sunnyside Drive, Lawrence.

WHO:

 • Victor Bailey, director of the Hall Center for the Humanities
 • Robert Hemenway, KU chancellor
 • John Gaunt, chair of the Hall Center building committee and dean of architecture and urban design
 • Dale Seuferling, president of KU Endowment Association
 • Hall Family Foundation representative

PARKING: Parking for the groundbreaking will be available at the Lied Center. A shuttle bus will leave from the circle south of the Lied Center beginning at 3:15 p.m., with the last bus leaving the Lied Center at 3:45 p.m. Buses will return to the Lied Center beginning at 4:45 p.m.

The new Hall Center for the Humanities building is the result of a $3.26 million gift to the KU Endowment Association from the Hall Family Foundation. An additional $500,000 in private funds also will support the project, and KU will provide furnishings and landscaping. When completed, the new building will celebrate the humanities and incorporate elements of KU's oldest surviving structure, the 1887 Powerhouse. The new two-story building will have approximately 11,000 square feet of space and will include a 120-seat conference room, a seminar room and offices for Hall Center staff and research fellows. The gift fulfills part of a $42 million Hall Family Foundation pledge announced in June 2001. That pledge, the largest private gift for higher education in the history of Kansas, earmarked up to $7 million for humanities-related programs, including construction of the new humanities center.