This week not only saw the arrival of students on campus for the fall 2016 semester but also the completion of 39 facility projects.
Construction started soon after spring 2016 commencement. The projects covered a variety of the buildings on campus including housing maintenance in the residence halls, adding extra outlets to the study areas on the second floor of Bailey library and adding and replacing steam kettles in Weisenfluh.
The list of projects included fixing the damage caused by the flood over the summer on the first floor of the student center. It also consisted of installing signs for the all-gender restrooms across campus.
Some projects have a few aspects that still need to be addressed, such as two more phases that will repair the north/south wing on the second and third floor of Spotts, with the construction timeline taking place from August 2016 to January 2017.
“It has been a very busy summer,” Amir Mohammadi, vice president of finance and administration, said. “We have an awesome staff.”
Mohammadi said most of the changes were focused on health and safety, while some dealt with ambience and growth.
“We want to provide an environment that is conducive to student learning,” Mohammadi said.
Scott Albert, assistant vice president of facilities and planning, said a lot of the projects were able to be finished thanks to having more planning beforehand and better ways to track the progress of the projects.
“This is probably the busiest summer that my staff can recall in about the past 25 years,” Albert said. “We were very fortunate that everything turned out the way it did.”
Albert said the most difficult projects included renovating the third floor of Rhoades Hall and Spotts.
A wall was torn off the side of Spotts and windows were replaced in the entire building, along with renovating the ground and first floor.
“There’s a tight deadline to make sure students can be in the building on the first day of classes,” Albert said.
The Rhoads project consisted of replacing all the windows on the back side of the building and added new floor drains in the bathrooms, new carpet, doors, paint, furniture, and lighting.
Albert said that renovating the third floor of Rhoades required close coordination with university workers, who had to clean up enough of the building so that the work of contractors was not delayed.
“We were very fortunate that everything turned out the way it did,” Albert said.
