Grant to Fund UMaine Preservation Plan
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — University of Maine Vice President for Advancement Jeffery Mills has announced a $175,000 grant from the Getty Grant Program’s Campus Heritage Initiative. The money will be used to fund a preservation plan for the buildings and landscapes included in UMaine’s National Register Historic District.
“This grant will enable us to put preservation planning at the forefront of our campus master planning process,” Mills says. The preservation plan will be integrated into the larger process, which is at an early stage.
“This project will also help to ensure the preservation of UMaine’s distinctive and beautiful New England land-grant campus,” Mills says. “We expect that UMaine’s preservation plan will be a model for incorporating historic preservation into a campus master plan.”
UMaine Vice President for Administration Janet Waldron says that the buildings within the National Register Historic District will be subject to an extensive analysis of their condition. A team consisting of historical architects, a structural engineer, a mechanical engineer and an electrical engineer will evaluate each building or structure to determine existing conditions of building elements and systems. Original and subsequent architectural drawings will be reviewed as part of this work.
Landscape architects will conduct an examination and review of landscape resources. Field documentation will include documentation and site analysis of existing conditions. Architects will prepare diagrams and a narrative of the campus landscape history, including any landscape resources found to be associated with important people or groups, and prepare a visual analysis of existing conditions.
“I very much appreciate the effort that has gone into acquiring this grant,” Waldron says. “Prof. Martha McNamara from our history faculty and Susan March from UMaine’s development office have been instrumental in this project. We are very pleased with the result, which will greatly enhance our campus planning process.”