NIU students will return to a better looking campus next fall due to improvements being made this summer.

The largest improvement will be the construction of three plazas. This will begin a multi-phase project to connect pedestrian traffic areas.

The King Memorial Commons project will begin following the May 14 demolition and removal of the Wirtz House, President John La Tourette said. The commons will be finished “before snow flies next fall,” La Tourette said.

The second plaza will be between Williston and Adams halls and the third at the Wirtz Quadrangle between Wirtz Hall and the University Health Center. These plazas will be completed before school begins in August, La Tourette said.

Campus parking lots 3, 6, 18 and 20 will be resurfaced over the summer, said Pat Hewitt, Business and Operations associate vice president. These are located at the Visual Arts Building, near Wirtz Hall, south of Neptune East residence hall and east of the Chick Evans Field House, she said.

The Grant and Stevenson complexes will be improved this summer. Smoke detectors will be installed at Stevenson Towers South beginning May 21 to comply with state laws, La Tourette said. Grant Towers C and D will be reroofed, he said.

The elevator at Adams Hall will be replaced to benefit the handicapped.

NIU will strip and resurface university-owned west Lucinda Avenue in July. DeKalb will resurface and add landscaped medians to city-owned Lucinda Avenue, east of Annie Glidden Road, in the summer of 1991.

A ground-breaking ceremony for Faraday II will be May 2, La Tourette said.

This new building will have gray metal window trim and a similarly pitched roof to harmonize with the style of the adjacent Davis Hall.

Faraday II will have three times more ventilation than the average office building so science lab work can be done safely.

The Arndt House will be renovated this summer to accommodate the Women’s Studies Program next semester. La Tourette said he will present a project budget of about $192,000 for the Regents’ approval Thursday. Contractors will be chosen before the end of May, he said.

These campus improvements will be presented for discussion and the Regents’ approval today and Thursday at Sangamon State University in Springfield. The board governs NIU, SSU and Illinois State University at Normal.

La Tourette said this is an unusually large number of campus improvements for one summer.

“Many projects have been backed up because the Holmes Student Center was not finished. This summer we will finally get to projects approved by the board a few years ago,” La Tourette said.