Renovations of the Martin Luther King Memorial Commons and the permanent closure of Carroll Avenue will be delayed until the recladding of the Holmes Student Center tower is completed.

According to the Campus Master Plan Executive Summary, construction of the commons and Carroll Avenue was scheduled to begin this summer.

Eddie Williams, vice president for finance and planning, said, “There is no delay in the architectural design” of the project. “We just can’t do anything until the student center is finished,” he said.

Conrad Miller, physical plant project manager, said the student center is scheduled to be completed by the summer of 1990. If things go according to the plan, the commons and Carroll Avenue renovations will begin at that time, he said.

However, the renovations might be postponed for a longer period of time if weather conditions delay the recladding of the student center.

The commons’ renovations will include new landscaping, a public speech area and a statue of Martin Luther King Jr., Williams said.

The restoration of the student center affects the commons and Carroll Avenue project because the “repair of the tower requires a large staging area,” Miller said. A lot of space is necessary to repair the tower because the construction workers will need a place to store the old brick and debris and to store the new limestone that will cover the tower, he said.

The construction area around the student center also will require considerable space to build a scaffold and to store a large crane that might be used to lift the limestone that will cover the student center.

Miller said part of the reason for the postponement of the commons’ renovations is that the storage of the materials will “tear up” part of the commons. “It doesn’t make sense to renovate the area and then have to ruin it,” he said.

The commons project also was postponed because two sets of construction workers working on separate projects would cause “conflict and confusion,” Miller said. There would be too much construction work going on in the area of the student center and the commons, and the physical plant workers “did not want to infringe upon the student activities,” he said.

The space available to store the necessary student center project materials already will be limited because a bus lane will need to be kept open, Miller said.

Also, as part of the postponed renovations and in accordance with the wishes of the city, Carroll Avenue will be permanently closed and a section of it will be a bus turnaround area, Williams said.

Another reason the commons and Carroll Avenue project will be postponed is because NIU “made an agreement with the City of DeKalb to keep a firelane open in Carroll Avenue,” he said.

The fire lane also will limit the space that can be used for construction purposes, Miller said.

In order to avoid the bus turnaround and the firelane, the student center construction trucks “will come directly off Lincoln Highway to Carroll Avenue and turn around when they need to leave,” he said.