After the UM System Board of Curators, the governing board of the four-campus UM System, approved $16.5 million for the project in December, construction on the Monk stream line will begin Monday and will go into the summer.

“We schedule more construction activity that impacts roads in the summer because there are far fewer people on campus then,” Campus Facilities spokeswoman Karlan Seville said in an email.

Initially, only Virginia Avenue will be impacted by the first phase of the project. Specifically, the area close to its intersection with Monk Drive will be closed first. Access to the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute and the south entrance of Parking Structure No. 7 will be affected but will still be accessible.

In mid-June, Monk Drive will close, Seville said. This is to complete construction on the Monk Stream Line, which she said is the summer’s main project.

“It will impact traffic near the University of Missouri Health Care campus,” Seville said. “We give departments plenty of notice and have been working with the Hospital PR office to make sure that they get the word out to patients, visitors and staff.”

She said her office also lets Summer Welcome, the Department of Residential Life and other departments use the streets during this time. Signage will be available to assist confused citizens who traverse the area.

Stream, storm water, condensate, sewer and telecom lines run beneath the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital parking lot now. The project will relocate them to under Monk Drive.

“This infrastructure is critical to the southern half of campus and must be in place to adequately supply the Patient Care Tower when it is completed,” Seville said.

The Patient Care Tower is in construction on the north side of University Hospital.

At a board meeting in November, Nikki Krawitz, UM System vice president of Finance and Administration, said this was an integral project for the system. She said the project will either fund itself or will be funded through capital reserves.