Whether a student is returning to UMass or beginning their freshman year, almost everyone on campus will be effected by the construction and renovation that has taken place this summer and that continues into the fall.
Maintenance, construction and landscaping crews have been hard at work all summer. The largest and most obvious project has been the construction work done on the Isenberg School of Management Harold Alfond addition. However, throughout the rest of campus many more projects have been completed.
One of the construction projects that has been completed is the new steam line in the Orchard Hill residence area. Construction there began last winter and was finished this summer. Replacement of the line is expected to be more energy-efficient and lower utility costs. According to Tom Weidner, the associate vice chancellor for facilities and campus services, the crews are cleaning up the last of the construction mess, and the new steam line is already working. “The clean-up is done for all intents and purposes,” Weidner said. “The heat is more reliable for the people up there.”
Along with the work at Orchard Hill, there have been other improvements to residence halls. The roof was replaced on Mary Lyon, and although there were repairs to roofs of towers and low rises in Southwest, the Northeast building was the only one to receive a complete replacement. “There are some leaks some of the times in a number of buildings,” John Findley, associate director for planning and operations in housing services said. “But the replacement for Mary Lyon cost $250,000, so it’s impossible to replace all of the roofs.”
In addition to the roof replacement, the exterior of Knowlton was repainted. Flooring was replaced and carpet installed in certain areas of John Quincy Adams, Baker and Moore residence halls. The fire alarm system was replaced in Butterfield. “The work on Butterfield would have happened anyway,” Findley said. “It was their time to be replaced and meet code requirements.” Some doors and ceilings were replaced or renovated in Butterfield as well.
There were specific improvements to the buildings in Southwest. Coolidge was the recipient of new, modernized elevators and new bathrooms. Many of the low- rise buildings in the area have been worked on. According to Findley, the balconies of some buildings have been closed. “We are looking at different ways to refigure the walls in those buildings,” Findley said. “We’ve been unable to maintain sliding doors in those balconies and looking for something safer. We’re looking for a way to install something with glass panels.”
Findley said that there have also been many small projects in which student crews have been working closely with maintenance crews to paint dorm rooms. Besides painting, each of the school’s 6,000 rooms has been individually and thoroughly cleaned. All of the small projects have now been completed, and the rooms are ready for students.
As the residence halls have been prepared for move-in day, the rest of campus has also been subject to construction and improvement. For example, the W.E.B. Dubois Library had its fire alarm system replaced. Sprinklers were installed in Herter, Tobin and the Graduate Research Center.
A new parking lot was created near Sylvan, where the old women’s tennis courts were located. Many more parking lots near Orchard Hill, the ROTC building, the Lincoln Apartments and the School of Public Health and Health Sciences were all repaved. Work continues on the Lincoln Apartments to remove lead and reinforce the structure of the building.
The lights were replaced on the top of Boyden gym. “Several years ago there were problems with the roof leaking,” Weidner said. “We fixed the floor and now we’re fixing the lights.”
The emergency generator project was completed between South College and the Library. According to Weidner, the telephone system that is used for the Office of Information Technologies is broken up into major nodes and one is underground between South College and the Library. The emergency generator was installed to insure that if there were ever to be a problem with the power lines, the computer system would not fail. “There was that big, ugly generator sittin’ around outside and it’s gone now,” Weidner said.
Many buildings throughout campus, including the Campus Center and Student Union have been renovated or improved to remove asbestos. “Given the age of most of the University buildings, up until 1973, almost all contain asbestos in one form or another,” Weidner said. “It was used in sound proofing and insulation. The University knows about it and has done the responsible thing to keep it contained safely. When we do renovation, we’re changing something and we remove the asbestos first – follow state regulations. The asbestos removal is the first step.”
Classrooms and auditoriums have also been renovated. Rooms in Hasbrouck, Paige and Goessmann laboratories have been upgraded, along with rooms and auditoriums in Holdsworth, Duda and Bowditch halls. New lighting has been installed as well as new furniture, painting, and carpeting. There have also been new distance-learning facilities installed in the Computer Science building and a new computer classroom in Furcolo Hall.
A new box office at the Fine Arts Center was been designed and constructed in place of the old box office. “People will see a big change there,” Jim Cahill, the director of facilities planning said. “It’s a whole new look, it’s great. People will be impressed.”
Near the Fine Arts Center, of course, is the biggest construction project going on right now. The Isenberg School of Management addition continues to progress. Completion is expected in September of next year. At that time the School of Management will have a grand facility that will include new classrooms and auditoriums with state of the art technology. Currently, room 120 is being renovated and will be completed next year as well. It will have all new seats, audio-visual equipment, and air-conditioning. “When we get done it’ll be a brand new place,” Cahill said.
Finally, the school is planning to construct a new engineering building, beginning sometime in November or December. The project, called ECSC Phase II, will be located in the general engineering quad and will be the addition to the ECSC Phase I, which is now a building for chemical engineering and civil engineering.
Cahill also commented on several projects that are currently on the drawing board or being studied, including construction to replace the Library deck, the Tobin deck, a handicapped parking area in front of the Fine Arts Center, and even the addition to the Mullins Center practice facility of a locker room area.
Steam line replacements in front of the Fine Arts Center and Morril, a new nurses building, a new waste transfer facility, and lab renovations in the Graduate Research Center are also “still on the boards” according to Cahill.
Most of the University’s construction and improvements take place during the summer and have already been completed, however, there are also on-going projects such as the renovation of the U-Store, the cellular towers on the top of Orchard Hill, and the School of Management construction that continue into the fall and even spring.
“There is a lot of new building going on around campus,” Weidner said. “You don’t see it sometimes, it doesn’t qualify as ‘real’ building to you, but it is to us.”
