Hungry Central Campus residents looking for a nearby source of food may be out of luck for the foreseeable future.

The restaurant intended for the former location of Uncle Harry's General Store has been delayed several months after engineers inspecting the building this summer found extensive termite damage, said Steve Nowicki, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education. He added that as a result, the decision was made to demolish the building and start over, rather than simply renovate it as previously planned.

Many of the structures in the Mill Village complex-which will house the new Uncle Harry's store as well as a series of common spaces-have also been deemed unrecoverable and will be rebuilt from scratch, meaning a new grocery store may not be open until the Spring semester, Nowicki said.

While students living on Central said they were excited for the new restaurant to open, in the interim, Central residents will have nowhere to buy food and supplies with their DukeCards without taking a bus to either East or West Campus.

"It's terrible, one of the reasons we chose our apartment was because it was in front of Uncle Harry's-now we have to buy groceries on regular money and it's really an annoyance," said junior Kiley Samz. "I think that it's kind of irresponsible to let Uncle Harry's close and leave Central Campus students with no alternative."

Nowicki said while one early model for the renovation was to keep the old Uncle Harry's store running until the new one opened, he said he argued it was more important to get the new restaurant in place as soon as possible.

"I understand that frustration," he said. "Unfortunately, whenever you build something there's going to be displacement and Duke has been building things for almost my entire time here-there's always someone who has to have the jackhammer in their ear for a while."

Kemel Dawkins, vice president for campus services, said the University is still working on getting permits from the city for the new food venues. He added that they are considering opening a temporary location on Central for Uncle Harry's until the Mill Village complex is completed.

"What it boils down to is a cost-benefit analysis," Nowicki said. "If [a temporary Uncle Harry's] costs a heck of a lot, that's less to spend on the rest of Central."

As part of the effort to overhaul the middle campus, the University had planned to add fencing and lighting to the campus as well as to resurface the athletic courts, which are also incomplete. Nowicki said he emphasized these projects as a way to provide a connection to the overall campus.

"You could drive through Central now and not know that Duke had anything to do with it," he said. "The point is not to close Central off physically but to actually identify it as being more Duke-both in reality and perceptually it makes it more safe."

Administrators also hope to unify the isolated campus with the rest of the University by boosting its social core. Nowicki said he will be working with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life in an effort to bring more groups to Central, where they would join current resident selective living groups SHARE and Ubuntu.

Ubuntu President Ryan Echternacht, a junior, said the group was provided with apartments for use as common rooms, as well as extra programming funds to make it easier to deal with the smaller social scene.

"So far everything's great-we've met with facilities people and [Terry Lynch, Residence Life and Housing Services' assistant dean for staff development and Central Campus], and they're very supportive and excited about us being out there," Echternacht said. "In a way we understand we're kind of a trial project. We're doing the best we can, and in the future, the more groups that come out the better for us as well."

The University has also set aside two Central campus apartments this year to be renovated as models for an aggressive campus renovation beginning next summer. Gary Thompson, director of facilities, planning and operations for RLHS, said the work will be contracted out once the designs are complete. Thompson estimated the renovations will be finished before winter break.