But a new well lighted, landscaped, granite-paved, automobile-free pedestrian area will be the result.

The contract to turn Thayer Road and Jefferson Road in the Central Post Area into a pedestrian mall was awarded early this month, and the contractor will begin work on the project in the middle of August.

"This is a temporary inconvenience for a permanent improvement," said Tony Marchesani, the executive assistant to the garrison commander.

The $4-million-dollar Thayer Pedestrian Mall Walkway is being funded by the classes of 1957, 1961, 1965 and 1974, and the walk will include memorial areas for those classes.

"That’s really what’s going to make it just plain pretty," said retired Lt. Col. Bob Lenz, the director of class giving for the Association of Graduates.

AOG has turned over approximately $3 million of money donated by the four classes for the construction of the basic pedestrian mall, Lenz said.

"The fundraising for the class memorial areas is better than halfway done," he added.

The mall will extend from the south end of Lee Barracks near the present Mahan Hall turnaround, then around Bartlett Hall to the library corner. The dead end of Thayer Road near the Eisenhower monument and the alley between Taylor and Bartlett halls will be developed and included in the mall, as will the end of Brewerton Road between Grant Hall and Pershing Hall.

"The intent is to bring more of a campus feeling without compromising the historical integrity," Robert G. Haimelin, the Directorate of Housing and Public Works architect and master planner who worked on the concept with the Association of Graduates, Alumni Affairs and New York state historians, said last year. "That’s a very ominous visual area. We don’t want to detract from that."

The materials that will be used for the project ensure that, said Tony Da Cruz, the DHPW project manager for the pedestrian mall.

The surface of the mall will be granite and concrete pavers, Da Cruz said, and the "base project" – the roadway, curbs and sidewalks – is expected to take a year to complete. The memorials will be completed after the base project.

Work on systems under the surface of Thayer Road in the area of the mall has been completed. Army dollars paid for the infrastructure rebuilding.

"We coordinated with the shops for anything that they thought needed to be repaired right away," Da Cruz said. "The last thing we want to do is dig up the road six months after it’s finished."

But, inevitably, repairs to the sewer lines, water lines, electrical wiring and communication cables that run under Thayer Road will have to be made.

"The materials we selected were sensitive to that," Haimelin said. "We will be able to put it back so you won’t be able to tell anything was done. That was one of the important aspects of the design."

Vollmer Associates in New York City is the architect and engineering firm for the project.

The contractor, SRM Construction Corporation from the Bronx, N.Y., is putting together a construction schedule, quality-control program, safety program and making the other necessary plans to begin work around the middle of August, he added.

That planning will cut down on inconveniences to the people who work, study and live in the central area, he added.

The contractor "plans to start with the curbs first, then do the sidewalks or the road," Da Cruz said. "If he starts on the road first, the sidewalk will be accessible and vice versa. That eliminates a lot of conceivable problems with mud, dust and uneven walking surfaces."

Cadets, soldiers and civilian employees can be assured that they will be able to get from one side of the road to the other.

"The contractor has to maintain an east-west thoroughfare in at least in one spot," Da Cruz said. That walkway will move as the work progresses.

"During construction, the contractor is required to provide safe pedestrian access to the buildings – for cadets, for employees, for everyone," Marchesani said.

"I think the way they are going to do it, we’re not going to have a problem," Da Cruz said.

The contractor is also trying to keep the site as quiet as possible, according to Lenz.

"The contractor is only going to use pneumatic equipment as a last resort," he said, so jackhammers will only rattle the area if the concrete under the asphalt resists removal by less noisy means, like backhoes.

During the construction of Thayer Walk and after the project is completed, vehicular access to the area will be even more tightly controlled than it is now.

"The only vehicles will be those with flashing lights," Marchesani said. Bollards at each end of the walk will be removable to let emergency vehicles enter.

Drivers of vehicles delivering goods or removing garbage will not be allowed to remove the bollards, however.

Deliveries and pickups to and from the buildings along Thayer Walk will take place from the backs of the buildings, Da Cruz said. Grant and Pershing will be serviced from Brewerton Road, and Taylor Hall, Bartlett Hall and the cadet library will be accessible via Cullum Road.

The construction and new pedestrian mall will affect the shuttle buses, as well.