Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech stays put while addresses change.  

Buildings on campus will now be assigned physical addresses to make it easier for 911 to respond to calls, aid in visitor navigation, and help with campus deliveries from external vendors.  

“Most of the time physical addresses are used, so this just enhances coordination between the various units,” said Hilary West, communications coordinator for transportation and campus services. “Anywhere else you go you have a street address and it just made sense at this point in time to implement physical street addresses on campus.”

This plan took effect on Aug. 1 and all departments are asked to have completely converted to the new system by June 2012.

The old system used building name and mail code number where as the new system gives all buildings an assigned street name and number.

“We will have some additional signage that will show up during the next year that will have the street address on it,” said Steve Mouras, director of transportation and campus services. “What we plan to do is make a small modification to the existing sign bars on the buildings.”

Due to many major delivery companies requiring a physical address, the change will prove to help those vendors make deliveries. Along with that, the addresses will help visitors who use GPS systems find their campus destinations.

“There has been a committee who has been heavily involved with the police department and various other stakeholders to assign each building on campus with a street number,” West said. “Of course some buildings are landlocked on campus and not physically facing a street and those were worked with in order to be assigned a street as well.”

This will also help 911 response services who come from off-campus sites. With off-campus responders not knowing all the locations of the buildings, the street addresses will help them respond to events.

“What was discovered further along the line was that the regional 911 was going to essentially mandate that we had street addresses because that is how most first responders respond to a problem,” Mouras said.

The Virginia Tech Police Department, Virginia Tech’s Network Infrastructure and Services, and the Town of Blacksburg were all involved in planning the new system and carrying it out.

“There is a very specific protocol of how you change addresses that tie in the phone companies.” Mouras said. “It took 18 months to roll this whole thing out but this was a nice collaborative process with the town of Blacksburg, the VT Police Department, and the phone managing network CNS.”

A version of this article appeared in the Aug 4 issue of the Collegiate Times.