Purdue vax rate hits 75%. Why Chauncey Ave. is torn up. Peek inside Purdue Memorial Union renovations
This and that today: Purdue's vaccination rates as move-in shifts to high gear, what's coming outside WL City Hall and look inside the Purdue Memorial Union renovations
Welcome to a free edition of Based in Lafayette, made possible, in part, by sponsor The Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette. Check the bottom of today’s Based in Lafayette newsletter for details about blues guitarist Robert Cray’s show Friday night and how you could win tickets.
I was determined, at some point, to have a township trustee-free edition of this thing. And today seems as good as any. I’ll have coverage and thoughts on the Wabash Township Board’s rejection of embattled Trustee Jennifer Teising’s pay-per-run firefighting model and of her proposed raise in the 2022 budget – plus some lingering fallout from the unraveling situation with Fairfield Township Taletha Coles – soon, maybe even in inboxes later today. Look for it.
Meanwhile, as they say, in other news …
PURDUE HITS 75% VACCINATION RATE, AS SEMESTER CLOSES IN: With the bulk of a record-setting freshman class already on campus for this week’s Boiler Gold Rush orientation – if you’ve been over on campus, you know – and classes set to start Monday with yet another record enrollment, Protect Purdue reported Tuesday that 75% of all students, faculty and staff self-reported that they were fully vaccinated.
That was up from the 60% of students and 66% of staff the Protect Purdue team released several weeks ago. And Purdue was touting the rate of students who have shown the university they are vaccinated was running more than double the rates for their age groups across Indiana, ranging from 33.2% to 35.9% for 16-29 age ranges.
Eric Barker, College of Pharmacy dean and leader of the Protect Purdue Health Monitoring and Surveillance team, said the goal was to get the vaccination rate to 80% to 90% overall.
“And those rates are in our sights,” Barker said in a university release. “We are seeing more individuals submitting their documentation each day and our on-site clinic continues to vaccinate students as they arrive on campus, as well as faculty and staff.”
Purdue doesn't have a flat-out vaccination mandate, as some schools – including Indiana University – do. But students/faculty/staff who don't show proof of getting one of the COVID-19 vaccinations must submit to regular COVID-19 testing, as they did last year. That testing would be weekly, in most cases, Protect Purdue folks have said.
Among the numbers of the vaccinated reported Tuesday morning:
40,496, or 75%, of students/faculty/staff.
84% of students assigned to residence halls.
86% of faculty have provided proof of vaccination.
76% of students in fraternities, sororities or cooperative housing.
85% of Purdue student-athletes and athletics staff.
Not in the numbers: The percentage of Purdue staff members and off-campus students who report being vaccinated. Tim Doty, a Purdue spokesman, said Tuesday the university didn’t plan to release more figures that day.
Purdue’s reopening plan said that employees working 100% remotely, off campus, will not be required to do routine surveillance testing.
Tippecanoe County’s vaccination rate is roughly 56% of those eligible to receive one of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“The more people we have vaccinated on campus, the safer we are as a community,” Dr. Esteban Ramirez, Protect Purdue Health Center chief medical officer, said. “And for the individual, vaccination is still the single best way to drastically reduce the risk of severe illness, hospitalization or death.”
ABOUT THE WORK ON CHAUNCEY AVENUE AT CITY HALL AND THE LIBRARY: Last Friday, on the parking lot side of West Lafayette City Hall, the mayor and others celebrated the career of the late Mayor Sonya Margerum, as her name was attached to the renovated city hall. Out front, work continued on a $2 million plaza running a full block of Chauncey Avenue between city hall and the West Lafayette Public Library. Work has the block closed, with additional work on sewer lines blocking the intersection of Chauncey Avenue and Columbia Street this week and shutting the intersection of Chauncey and North Street once that’s done.
The plaza is part of a two-stage project, with city plans to build a plaza on a short, dead-end section of South Street in 2023. (Think of the block that include Greyhouse, Vienna Coffee and the Chase Bank/Louis Sullivan “Jewel Box” building at the corner of Northwestern Avenue/South Street/State Street.)
The plaza between city hall and the library will be open to traffic, but it was designed so it could be easily closed for festivals or other events, Erin Easter, West Lafayette’s development director, said. The project will include benches and tables, two electric vehicle charging stations, power to accommodate festivals to reduce the need for generators and an art installation that mimics the Artful Rail pieces that line much of State Street through the Village area.
The project is expected to be done by the end of the year, Easter said.
Here’s a look:
PURDUE MEMORIAL UNION RENOVATIONS, ON TRACK: Speaking of taking shape, a $47.3 million project to gut and remake the ground floor of the century-old Purdue Memorial Union has come along well enough that Purdue officials led a tour for media early this week.
The terrazzo floors are in, though covered for the rigors of months of construction still to come. Metal studs are up. Black and metallic bronze wall tile, with a transit map-inspired design, was spaced and being grouted. Wainscoting was on pillars. Archway molds sat on pallets, waiting to go up near a space that will host 11 dining venues – including one tied to former Purdue quarterback Drew Brees – and four venues and stage spaces.
But as Zane Reif, director of the Purdue Memorial Union, led the way through the hard hat area, it helped to know what used to be where in ground floor dining spaces in a building that draws 11,000 to 14,000 students and visitors a day during the academic year.
“It definitely has a way to go,” Reif said. Work is expected to be done by January 2022, when Purdue opens the spring 2022 semester, he said.
Work on the Purdue Memorial Union follows a $30 million renovation of the Union Club Hotel, which finished in 2020, just as the pandemic settled in.
The project – which takes in more than 67,000 square feet, including some in the Stewart Center – was designed to better incorporate terraces on the south side of the Memorial Union, recreate a marketplace approach to dining, bring in more natural light and increase seating from 870 to 1,253.
Reif said alumni have been checking in regularly – “And understandably so,” he said – asking about what’s happening to the place where they hung out, met their spouse or walked through on a daily basis during their time on the West Lafayette campus. Their biggest concern, he said, paraphrased: Don’t ruin it.
“This building is iconic, a landmark on campus,” Reif said. “What we’re after is a nod to history and the look of the Union, but modernizing it to serve the students going forward.”
Greg Kapp, vice president for development with Purdue for Life, said fundraising continues for naming rights for everything from each of the two terraces, various stages and seating areas and the entire marketplace dining area. Also available for sponsorship: The stone monuments that once stood as tributes to Dean of Students Bev Stone at the corner of State and Grant streets, and now being incorporated into features inside the renovated Purdue Memorial Union. (So far, he said, the rights are sold for a corner booth, a tribute to the former Pappy’s Sweet Shop, that will go in Walk-Ons, a restaurant co-owned by Brees.) Details on naming rights: Here.
The construction site remains closed to visitors this semester. Next time it’s open, it won’t leave as much to the imagination.
Thanks to sponsor Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette for help with today’s edition. About that Robert Cray Band show, click the graphic below for tickets and more.
CONTEST TIME/FREE ROBERT CRAY BAND TICKETS: On a final note, Based in Lafayette sponsor The Long Center for the Performing Arts is offering a pair of free tickets for Friday night’s show by the Grammy-winning Robert Cray Band. I have details on how to enter my Twitter feed and on Facebook. (Preview below.) We’ll draw a winner at noon Thursday.
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