Savannah State University will host groundbreaking ceremonies for two new science buildings on Friday, June 24. The event will be attended by University System of Georgia officials, legislators and local representatives.

At 2 p.m., the ceremony will begin at the site for the marine sciences building at 2717 Livingston Avenue. At 3 p.m., the festivities will continue at the site for the science and technology building on North Tompkins Road, near Kennedy Fine Arts Building.

The rain location is the auditorium in the Jordan building. All are invited to attend.

The acreage on Livingston Avenue includes deep-water access, which will allow marine sciences faculty and students to depart and return at any time, with ship-based research and instruction not dictated by tidal schedules. The building will provide approximately 17,000 square feet of new space with state-of-the-art amenities. The new building is slated to include laboratories for dolphin survey, necropsy, fish ecology, environmental toxicology, ocean acidification, coastal biophysics, instrumentation and more.

On the main campus, there will be a two-story, 30,000 square foot building to house engineering technology and chemistry laboratories. The building will be comprised of labs and faculty space. Civil engineering technology will gain labs for surveying, construction materials, solids structures and fluids. Electrical engineering technology will have learning space for digital systems, electronics and power systems. The chemistry program will also be expanded and included in this new building.

During an initial site study, historical records indicated that a cemetery used to be in the vicinity of the building site on campus. SSU was granted permission from Chatham County Superior Court to progress with proper archaeological and re-interment procedures. However, official archaeological excavations near North Tompkins Road did not identify any graves, tombstones, grave shafts, grave goods or any other features that could be linked to a cemetery at this location.