Students returning to school expecting to see their favorite campus landmarks are being met, instead, with fences, litter and scaffolding.

Facilities Management, the department that oversees most campus construction, said there are many projects going on across the campus and cannot predict when they will be complete, leaving students and passersby to wonder when the campus’s trademark sites will be finished.

“We have quite a number of [construction projects] underway, as any tour around the campus will tell you,” said Carlo Colella, the Facilities Management director of capital projects. “We’ve been working very hard across all of our projects and with our colleagues on campus to make sure construction sites are safe and pedestrian routes around the sites are well-marked.”

McKeldin Mall fountain

Among the current projects is the renovation of the fountain on McKeldin Mall. Kristen Kostecky, the Facilities Management director of campus projects, said repairs to the fountain were necessary primarily due to its age.

Kostecky said the concrete was deteriorating and the lights around the fountain were no longer functional. She added the fountain was renovated to comply with university safety codes requiring an installation of a dual drain system.

The fountain itself is operational, and the renovations are nearly complete: All that remains to be done is the replacement of stones along the edge that were removed to be engraved, according to Kostecky.

Students, who have long used the fountain as a wading pool, piece of scenery and venue for inflatable-boat races, said they didn’t think the fountain needed work, just that it was “a little old.”

“I’m sure it will be better when it’s done,” junior mechanical engineering major John Bueno said, who said he thinks they could have done without renovation.

Kostecky said the fountain renovation project cost the university approximately $155,000.

Sundial

Not only is the fountain under construction, but the sundial is missing completely.

Kostecky said the gnomon, the part on a sundial that casts a shadow, broke last semester and needed to be re-welded.

The sundial, she said, is in a “remote location” being repaired, adding it is unknown when it will return to the campus.

Memorial Chapel

The 57-year-old Memorial Chapel is getting a much-needed facelift.

Chapel Coordinator Megan Miller said the entire exterior of the chapel is being painted, including the steeple area — leading to a perimeter of scaffolding around the chapel’s tower.

She said the project is going according to schedule, though she would not predict when construction would commence.

Knight Hall

Meanwhile, on the other end of the campus, the new home of the journalism school, Knight Hall, is coming together.

The $30 million undertaking stands to be the first “green building” on the campus — a new step in the university’s ongoing quest to reduce its carbon footprint to zero by 2050.

Stephen Crane, the assistant dean of the journalism school, estimated the project is probably somewhere between 75 and 80 percent done.

He said it is still on schedule to be opened sometime in mid-November and will be fully operational by the spring of 2010.

“We’re on schedule, it looks good, and it’s coming along,” Crane said.

estelle at umdbk dot com