Construction Update 10/14/2019

New Tower. The big news last week was the largest concrete pour of the project—almost 11 hours long. Last Thursday, from 4 am to about 3 pm a concrete pump truck in the loading-dock area moved concrete into the first-floor area that will become the learning studio, corridors, café, restrooms, and utility rooms. The concrete pour just beat the rain, which might have postponed it until Friday.

building project construction

Now that the first-floor concrete has been poured it is possible to backfill gravel around the sub-basement and basement walls on the west side of the new tower. (The first-floor concrete spans the tops of the walls and prevents the backfill from knocking the walls over into the excavation area.) Backfilling is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. To accommodate a conveyor unit that will move the gravel to where it is needed, the loading dock will be closed all day on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Once the west side of the site has been backfilled there will be more space for concrete trucks and pump trucks on the University Avenue side of the site, which should reduce the frequency of loading-dock closures.

Taping of the insulation on the exterior wall at the north end of Daniels has now been completed (see the red tape in the fourth photo above). This will lessen infiltration of cold air into the remaining part of Daniels this winter.

Chemistry Learning Center. The fourth-floor area of the Medical Sciences Center that will become the new Chemistry Learning Center is partially demolished in preparation for construction. This project is on schedule for completion at the end of May 2020 so that the CLC can move into it in summer 2020.

building project construction

building project construction

Mock-up Site. Windows and partly finished exterior walls are taking shape at the mock-up site, which is starting to give us a picture of what the outside of our new tower will look like.

Outages and Closures. There will be a heating outage on the east side of the first floor of Daniels on Friday, October 18, beginning at about 6 am and lasting until 1 pm or later. A second-floor heating outage is scheduled for Monday, October 21, with similar duration. On the floors below the floors where heat will be shut off, pipes carrying hot water to heating units along the east wall of Daniels are being moved to different positions. This will allow for piping related to the new emergency electric generator to be installed after the fall semester ends. Thus, there will be work in the basement on Friday of this week and on the first floor on Monday of next week.

A concrete pour for the basement floor in the new tower is scheduled for Tuesday, October 15. This will close Mills Street between University Avenue and Conklin Court (the alley halfway between University Avenue and Johnson Street). A pump truck and concrete trucks will occupy the closed part of Mills Street that day. In case of rain on Tuesday, the closure will be moved to Wednesday.

Loading Dock. We expect the loading dock to be closed all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 15 and 16 for backfilling around the west side of the new tower walls. On Thursday, October 17, a large shipping container (Conex box) will be delivered to the construction site, blocking the loading dock from about 5 am to 6:30 am. This is outside normal loading-dock hours, so it is not expected to cause any issues. Also, there may be brief closures at unpredictable times.

This information is up to date as of Friday afternoon. Email bulletins will be provided as needed.
John Moore and Bob McMahon