The university anticipates the completion of many construction projects on campus before students return in the fall.

Campus will look slightly different next fall.

SDSU will be making a number of cosmetic improvements to campus in addition to completing the new dairy plant over the summer. Walkways will have lighting improved, the band will have new bleachers at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium and Greek Village will be made ready for the construction of new houses.

Much of what the facilities and services department will be doing, however, might go unnoticed.

According to Dean Kattelmann, SDSU’s assistant vice president for facilities and services, the university is in the process of completing $3 million worth of energy saving projects. Some of those projects include putting a new air-conditioning system into Pugsley Hall, Wagner Hall and the Rotunda will get new air handling equipment. The heating plant will receive an upgrade to the equipment used to control its output.

“When students come back in the fall, we’ll have some cosmetic things done that we’ve known about, but just haven’t done because of all the construction,” Kattelmann said.

The new SDSU dairy plant will be completed and fully functional in August. The new plant represents an almost 10-year effort to update the university’s dairy facilities. When completed, the dairy program will be able to grow from 85 students to 120 across two majors.

Dairy plant manager Jacob Anderson is enthusiastic about the new facility. “The (new) plant will give us the option to make our ice-cream more well known,” he said.

Anderson added that industry partners played a key role in building the new plant. “(Our) industry partners really made the plant possible,” he said.

Another project for the SDSU facilities and services department will be to upgrade the lighting along several walkways around campus.

“This summer, we’ll be putting in additional lights to make a nice lighted pathway between Hansen Hall and the Wellness Center,” Kattelmann said. Kattlemann also explained that his department will be installing lights along the walkways between Coughlin-Alumni Stadium and the southeast corner residence halls.

The SDSU athletic department will also be improving some of its facilities. Most notably the department will be adding a new set of bleachers on the south end of the football field at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium. The new bleachers will allow the school’s band as well as students to sit in their own area.

“I think the students will enjoy it,” Kattelmann said. “What’ll be nice is the people in the stands can actually hear the band instead of just the visiting team.”

Two new medians will also be constructed over the summer one at the north entrance to campus on Medary Avenue Another will be built at an entrance farther to the south on 13th Avenue next to the southeast commuter parking. Both medians will be lined with trees and are intended to enhance the campus’s appearance when people enter.

By the end of May, all the earth work will be completed at the site of the planned Greek Village. Fraternities and sororities will then be able to build new houses for their chapters on the site. Though none of the Greek organizations have made any official plans to do so yet.

Another project planned for the summer is moving the university motor pool, where university vehicles are stored, from it’s current location, to a new location on the northeast corner of campus.

“Hopefully in May we’ll start on the building, and this summer be able to move the vehicles up there,” Kattelmann said. In addition to the new motor pool the northeast corner of campus will have two new gravel parking lots for students. The lots will be free to park in for students who have registered their vehicles.