To mark the start of residence hall construction, a groundbreaking ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. today just north of La Maison du Bayou apartment complex. Rebecca T. Pennington, assistant vice president for development and university relations and is the chair of the Groundbreaking Committee, said the ceremony will open with Davis welcoming the crowd followed by speeches by University President Stephen Hulbert along with other administrators.

The ceremonial groundbreaking, where speakers as well as honored guests wear hard hats and scoop dirt with gold shovels, will immediately follow the speeches.

Davis will close the ceremony and allow select University administrators, area legislators and people who have worked to get the project moving to take snap shots wearing the hard hats and holding the shovels they received.

The groundbreaking ceremony is supposed to occur before any work on a project is started; however, the University could not schedule it before work began.

“We will at least be having the groundbreaking ceremony before we pour any slabs,” said Davis. “We are having this groundbreaking to start these projects, but if we want to have them ready on time, we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Construction of the residence halls actually began Sept. 17 with the installation of a sewer line.

The first dorm, located across from the cafeteria and Audubon Avenue, is scheduled to be completed Aug. 1, 2008. The other two dorms that are being built between the tennis courts and Bowie Road should be ready for Aug. 12, 2008.

Each of the three-story buildings will be U-shaped complete with an elevator and wireless Internet service. Each resident will have his or her own room with one bathroom per every two rooms. Once the new halls open, no community bathrooms will exist on campus.