Plans for the downtown campus

In less than a month, most all academic programs, student facilities and services will begin to relocate to the new campus in New Cairo. However part of AUC's Tahrir campus will remain downtown. These exceptions will be the School of Continuing Education (SCE), Management Center, the law department, part of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS), and the AUC Press.

"Only some services are staying downtown, relative to the number of students that are being served," said Hesham Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, director, engineering projects, office of facilities and services, who oversees, the transition phase and the re-planning of the downtown campus. "Essentially we will be catering to the 45,000 enrolled in the SCE," added Ibrahim.

The programs and services remaining downtown that are currently housed in their present Tahrir location, either on the Main Campus, the Greek Campus, or in the Falaki buildings, will initially be moved to a temporary location before finally occupying to a permanent space.

The Main Building, Hill House and New Falaki Buildings will continue to serve as the landmarks of AUC's Tahrir campus while other downtown buildings will either be sold or torn down.

"Old Falaki will be demolished and replaced by a garden," explained Ibrahim, noting that the building will be cleared out as of July and razed in August.

The New Falaki building will house, among other facilities, a one-stop-shop for Continuing Education student admission, enrollment, financial aid, and registration services.

The Science Building will be on hold, "mothballed" and eventually sold. The Greek Campus will temporarily continue to house SCE and the Management Center, in addition to the Center for Migrations and Refugee Studies and some Institute for Gender and Women's Studies offices.

The Rare Books and Special Collections Library located on Mansour Street will be sold within a year.

The ground floor of the Main Building, to be renamed the "Downtown Cultural Center", will house the AUC Bookstore and the Margo Veillon Art Gallery, as well as reception areas. "The Main Campus will continue to host lectures and cultural events," said Paul Donoghue, vice president for planning and administration.

In cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, AUC has already contracted local resident architect Agnieszka Dobrowolska to undertake the internal re-planning of the historic Main Building ground floor to resemble more closely its original interior style.

While the downtown campus will not provide any sports facilities, it will offer a smaller faculty lounge, and two cafeterias (Main Campus and Falaki), in addition to nine "hotel offices" for faculty coming from the new campus and needing an temporary office space.

The approximately 130 classrooms, located in the Main Building, Hill House and Falaki, will be remodeled and mostly completed by February 2009.

Detailed plan of the current, temporary and permanent locations for the various present and future downtown programs and services

May 18, 2008