As summer break starts for students, St. Thomas Physical plant employees will begin projects including a sculpture garden and construction on the South Campus fields and in the Murray-Herrick Campus Center.
Interim Associate Vice President for Facilities James Brummer said this summer will be just as busy as the recent past has been for construction, but this year’s projects differ in scale.
“We don’t have a large building project like we’ve had in the past such as the Student Center or the AARC. Those are more major construction,” Brummer said. “There are smaller projects this summer.”
Brummer said these projects will involve updates, remodelings and relocations.
“The biggest projects will be the South Campus field turf project and the Murray-Herrick remodel for admissions space,” Brummer said.
The $2 million South Campus turf project, budgeted through the Opening Doors capital campaign, includes improved access to the field and new bleachers that will seat 723 people. Other features include new fencing, scoreboards and softball dugouts.
Interior renovations in Murray-Herrick are set to continue after many offices were relocated last summer.
“The next phase is to build out the Admissions space, so it’s going to take up the area where Auxiliary Services used to be located,” Brummer said.
The Admissions offices, which are now located on Finn Street, are expected to be moved into Murray-Herrick before the fall. The 7,200-square-foot project is set to be completed by Aug. 15.
Marla Friederichs, associate vice president for Admissions and Financial Aid, said the main reason for the move was to put Admissions and Financial Aid together in a central, updated location.
“We’re the first look that a lot of students get, and we certainly want to have a nice facility,” Friederichs said. “We need to be accessible and we’re not right now,”
Brummer said the university is also looking at bids for a July project to demolish the garage behind the 2120 Summit Ave. Development Office to create room for additional parking.
O’Shaughnessy Educational Center and John Roach Center are scheduled for interior renovations. Brummer said the Modern and Classical Languages department is growing at a “decent” pace, making restorations necessary.
“We’re going to go up to third floor OEC where Modern and Classical Languages is housed right now and renovate their office suite. Right now they’ve got some small clumsy offices, it’s really not laid out very well for meeting their current needs,” Brummer said.
The psychology department, located in the lower level of John Roach Center, will also see space alterations. Remodeling will turn some classrooms into teaching labs and offices.
The projects in OEC and JRC are expected to be completed by August.
Scaffolds will be set up against Brady Hall to continue with a brick restoration process that began in 2009 after Physical Plant Services noticed a bulge on the east side of the building. Brummer said part of the roadway behind Brady Hall will be temporarily reduced to one lane while restoration is in process.
“The Brady Hall brick restoration will have a slight impact, probably nothing that will require large portions of the campus to be shut down like we’ve experienced for the last few years with the AARC and the student center,” Brummer said.
Construction can make getting around campus difficult; however, Friederichs said construction has not been a deterrent for any prospective students and their families so far.
“It hasn’t impacted our enrollment numbers at all. It’s just we have to be a little more strategic in terms of what we’re showing and how we’re showing it.” Friederichs said. “The plans that they’re making are for the good of the entire university and we’re flexible, we can work around just about anything.”
O’Shaughnessy Stadium gained a new video scoreboard last year, and this year it will receive a stone façade, similar in appearance to the stone used in the Anderson Student Center and Recreation Complex. Brummer said Physical Plant Services ran out of time to finish the stone work last fall.
Brummer said a sculpture garden is also in the works for this summer.
“We’ve also, over the years, received generous donations for different artwork and we haven’t really had a good place to display it. So we’re looking at doing a sculpture garden that’s over on South Campus,” Brummer said.
The garden will be near Brady Educational Center. No date has been set for completion of the garden, but Brummer said it is likely to be completed over the summer.
Despite having only three months to complete all the projects, Brummer said he thinks the tasks are “comfortably on track” to reach completion before the 2013-2014 school year. Brummer said most of these projects were reserved for the summer on purpose in an attempt avoid inconveniencing the university during the school year.
“Our priority here is obviously to educate students. To do large renovations during that process is disruptive and our goal is not to be disruptive, so we try to push off what we can,” Brummer said. “It also makes it more efficient for us, too, because there is less people on campus.”
Zach Zumbusch can be reached at zumb8499@stthomas.edu.