Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center

The hospital is abuzz with new construction this year. One of the main projects is the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center, which celebrated its groundbreaking last April and is slated for completion in 2011. The center is named after a Virginia State Senator who represented the Charlottesville area. Couric, sister of newscaster Katie, passed away in 2001 from pancreatic cancer. A good summary article of the project notes that Zimmer Gunsul Frasca is the architect. Gilbane and H.J. Russell Company are the general contractors for the project.

A visit to the site suggests that the lot started from scratch and was vacant. Of course, anyone familiar with UVA real estate would know that this lot has an excellent and therefore valuable location at the base of the hospital complex. Being valuable real estate, the lot was of course previously a parking garage. In anticipation of the leveling of this garage, UVA built a replacement garage in a nearby lot. This new garage is at least three times bigger and can be seen easily from Carter's Mountain or Monticello. (The Rotunda, by comparison, is almost impossible to spot.)

The groundbreaking last April was unique, according to UVA Today. Instead of shovels in the ground, a track excavator "bit a chunk out of" the old parking garage. Yum! The groundbreaking also featured UVA's very own Cavalier Marching Band playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. The Overture was written in defiance of Napoleon's advancing army... budget cuts?

Photos by GFC, 2009.01.19

The old garage came down pretty quickly, and then the debris was trucked away, and then the lot was completely leveled. Nothing was left except for utility connections. Now a structural grid has gone up and it seems that workers are already at least a story above the ground. Upon completion, the building will have one below-ground story and four above-grade stories.