Campus Construction Update March 17, 2022

Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Matt Dull chats with University Communications' Dave Blanks about the construction progress for App State's New River Hall, slated to open in fall 2022, as well as renovations and additions to the child development center.

Transcript

Dave Blanks: Hey folks, this is Dave Blanks from University Communications, back with a campus construction update. Matt Dull is in the house. We're talking about '90s alternative music for some reason.

Matt Dull: And looking at Dave's CD collection in the office.

Dave Blanks: Right? Why do I have these CDs? Why do I have the Presidents of the United States of America? I don't know. I don't even have a disc drive in this computer. What am I doing with these?

Matt Dull: Coasters.

Dave Blanks: Yeah, they're definitely great coffee coasters for me now. One fierce coffee coaster. So Matt, we're going to talk about New River Hall today. And you said you have some info on the child development center?

Matt Dull: Yeah. We can [crosstalk 00:00:35] the child development center.

Dave Blanks: Yeah, that's cool. So you want to start at New River?

Matt Dull: Yeah. Sounds great.

Dave Blanks: All right. Let's wade into the New River.

Matt Dull: Jump in. Good stuff.

Dave Blanks: That's right. We start on the outside?

Matt Dull: Yeah. We start on the outside work our way in, I guess. Outside of the building, masonry is continuing, about 90% complete.

Dave Blanks: It is. Yeah-

Matt Dull: It is really coming along. And we've got a couple of sections that have to be wrapped up. We're probably about a month out or so, kind of first week of April, second week of April should have everything wrapped up and then cleaned as well by that timeframe.

Dave Blanks: Cool.

Matt Dull: So still really on track. I think originally, we were talking about maybe end of March when we talked about this a few months ago. But we're relatively close to finishing that up.

Dave Blanks: Tell me the time table again. What did you say? You said it was end of May?

Matt Dull: For?

Dave Blanks: For New River, for the brick?

Matt Dull: Oh, yeah. For the brick, really probably like the second week of April.

Dave Blanks: Okay. All right. Second week.

Matt Dull: Getting wrapped up with the brick and the precast stone and that elk stone that's on the outside. We'll still have some masonry work on a lot of the site walls, that'll happen kind of a little bit later. If you've seen on campus or looked on campus, a lot of our retaining walls and site walls you see around campus, we've really moved to that where you've got elk stone on the walls of it, and then like a granite cap or a precast concrete cap on top. So that similar detail of the retaining walls will be the same on this project, but that'll happen a little bit later. Most of those walls have been poured and then they'll really start on the masonry work there after they get the building substantially complete.

Dave Blanks: That's what we have here on between Anne Belk Hall, where we are, and Rankin.

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: There is some of that elk stone on one of the walls right beside the building, and it has a cap that I'm not sure I've seen replicated anywhere else on campus. I don't know if if you've noticed this cap, but it does look like precast.

Matt Dull: Well, yeah, it could be a precast concrete cap. It's got a little bit of like a triangle to the top-

Dave Blanks: Yeah.

Matt Dull: Maybe a little bit, to get the water to come off the side.

Dave Blanks: Yeah.

Matt Dull: Yeah, yeah.It's a little cheaper to do those precast concrete than doing a solid granite slab. Ideally, we like the solid granite slab-

Dave Blanks: It's going to be more durable.

Matt Dull: More durable. It's going to last longer. But those concrete-

Dave Blanks: Little sections or?

Matt Dull: Precast concrete sections on top are more affordable. It does help shed the water off and-

Dave Blanks: It looks nice.

Matt Dull: It keeps the freeze thaw cycle from getting... If you get water behind that elk stone, freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw, that mortar is going to into... The whole wall falls apart. So that helps to really shed the water off and get it either into the grass or onto the sidewalk or pavers to disperse. And so you're not destroying the wall and having to constantly go back and repoint the wall.

Dave Blanks: Sure.

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Well, what else?

Matt Dull: Yeah. So yeah, pouring site walls, pour retaining walls outside just as we get warmer and drier days. So we're in this weird... We're in the spring cycle in Boone, right?

Dave Blanks: It's almost spring. Like officially, I was actually just looking this up. So the first day of spring for 2022 is coming up, it's March the 20th.

Matt Dull: Yeah, March the 20th. So I don't know, a week. A little over a week from today.

Dave Blanks: Yeah.

Matt Dull: But we're supposed to get snow this week.

Dave Blanks: I know. Yeah. Not so unusual.

Matt Dull: And down to like 10 degrees or whatever on Saturday.

Dave Blanks: What in the world?

Matt Dull: Yeah. So we're in that weird cycle where you can get some stuff done for a few days because you get 50 and 60 degree days, nice weather. And then you're back to the rain, 40 degrees, or snow or freezing temperatures. So it's kind of hard to get some consistent weeks of work, but that'll change here in another few weeks. I think we get through March and we'll be in a place where you can pretty much do outside work all day, every day and keep that progressing. So things are moving along nicely, still on schedule with everything on the exterior. But really focusing on that exterior masonry work and then also the site walls. Once all that gets done, then you can start working on getting the final grades, and then really start things like landscaping and they'll do pouring the sidewalks and that kind of stuff. And that'll be kind of an early summer... Late spring, early summer kind of timeframe.

Dave Blanks: It'll be here quick.

Matt Dull: It'll be here quick. Yeah, just a few months away.

Dave Blanks: What about inside?

Matt Dull: Yeah. Inside. So punch list walks have happened on the A side of the building, so that's the side of the building that's closest to River Street.

Dave Blanks: River Street, yeah.

Matt Dull: And punch list has happened really, in the entire tower. So mostly, essentially complete on that tower with minor aesthetic touchups that need to be done. But that whole tower itself is mostly complete. But we'll go back and do a mechanical punch list. So our heating and air conditioning, plumbing and that kind of stuff here shortly. But pretty much all of the final finishes... That wing of the building essentially, kind of looks like what's going to look like when students move in. There's few little paint touchups and stuff like that.

Dave Blanks: Are we doing the topographical type map in the entry?

Matt Dull: Oh, in the lobby? Yeah. Yeah, that'll kind of continue the theme there, as well as that little kind of [topo 00:06:10] blacking, gold and grays, looks like a topographic map but with block A in there. So that theme will continue in this- [crosstalk 00:06:19]

Dave Blanks: Will it be like for The New River or for a section of The New River?

Matt Dull: Oh, that's a good question. I don't think we've actually finished the design on that-

Dave Blanks: Made it specific [crosstalk 00:06:27]. Oh yeah. All right.

Matt Dull: Yeah. But none of them, I don't think, are exactly specific to kind of the geographic locations. But to kind of pull in... We're in a mountainous area, to kind of pull that. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Okay. The aesthetic is there.

Matt Dull: The aesthetic is there.

Dave Blanks: Right. Cool. Nice. What else-

Matt Dull: What we'll do also... I don't know if you remember in the other buildings, we've got these glass mounted images, that one of our employees has actually gone out and taken pictures of these different sites and those glass mounted images will be in the-

Dave Blanks: Yeah. They look awesome.

Matt Dull: In the lobbies, too. So we'll continue that in New River, too.

Dave Blanks: Wow. No pressure. "Go take this picture to represent these beloved places around the area."

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Wow. How many pictures are they taking?

Matt Dull: Well, they've given us a bunch of different options for each one. But really, it ends up being kind of four of those. If you'll remember, like in the Student Union, when we did the add-on to the Student Union in 2012, we had a different photographer but same concept of just these beautiful scenes of-

Dave Blanks: Yeah, there's some really pretty shots in there.

Matt Dull: Of the different locations that the rooms are named after, that are kind of outside of the room. So wanted to almost continue that theme a little bit. We loved it so much there and trying to continue that in the residence halls.

Dave Blanks: Cool.

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: I'll look forward to seeing what the lobby is going to shape up to look like.

Matt Dull: Yeah. No, it's exciting. So yeah, things are lining up nicely there. Continuing to really do... On that B wing of the building, really those top floors, we're moving into that finishing stages. So carpet, final touchups on paint, finishing the installs of all the electrical outlets, switches, and bathroom fixtures and things like that. So all that's kind of happening now at the top floors. And then just as you work down, they're a little bit further, week or two kind of further behind as you go down each floor. So you go down to that ground floor of that B wing, and they're still finishing up drywall installation and doing the patching and then moving into our painting. And then they'll start doing some of this trim work probably in another month or so in that ground floor. So they're just working their way down from top to bottom in the building, and each floor is about two weeks behind the next floor.

Dave Blanks: Gotcha.

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Hey, just a random thought. Do the rooms still have phone service?

Matt Dull: No. Actually, we don't really do phone service. There are a few cases, we do an emergency phone service. Some students do have like a medical need, where they may need to have a phone or maybe a device that they use, like a medical device requires a phone connection. But students really don't ask about phones anymore.

Dave Blanks: Oh, I know. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:09:14] When we were in school, you had to call Papa John somehow.

Matt Dull: That's right. Oh, these apps.

Dave Blanks: Exactly.

Matt Dull: But yeah, so we don't do phone service and we actually also don't do cable service anymore.

Dave Blanks: Oh, wow. Really?

Matt Dull: Students really weren't using it. It wasn't really a high demand service.

Dave Blanks: Man, times have changed.

Matt Dull: Yeah, I know. So there's so much focus on streaming. So we really put a big effort in making high speed internet in the buildings, having reliable internet connections. We do have ethernet ports in each room. There are a lot of students that still do gaming or their Xbox, PlayStations, those kind of things. And they actually want to hard wire in, you can get a slightly faster speed there. And then we have to got Wi-Fi throughout the building.

Dave Blanks: Remember when we were in the residence halls, and we'd all just crowd around the radio and listen to like, The Shadow and Little Orphan Annie? Remember, Matt?

Matt Dull: I'm not quite recalling that, but-

Dave Blanks: Remember? Cast your memory back to those days.

Matt Dull: I am remembering living in Justice Hall my first year, they still had like the old DSL, slightly better than dial-up modems that you had in each of your rooms.

Dave Blanks: Beep, beep, beep. Did They make that noise? They didn't make that those?

Matt Dull: They did make the noise. They did make the noise.

Dave Blanks: Don't you miss the noise?

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Sometimes, I miss the noise.

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Don't you miss all the America Online CDs you used to have?

Matt Dull: I know.

Dave Blanks: Gollee.

Matt Dull: Yeah, that was like guaranteed mail at least a couple times a month.

Dave Blanks: I know. Again, fabulous coasters. So hey, listen. If we're done with New River, which I think we are done with updates for today, you want to head over to the child development center?

Matt Dull: We'll head over there. So for those of you who don't know, we haven't really talked too much about it-

Dave Blanks: Not much.

Matt Dull: The child development center. We have an existing building of that child development center that's been around for 30 plus years as a child development center. And we are expanding that into a facility literally right next door to the existing facility, and that new expansion's going to allow us to serve an additional 55 children.

Dave Blanks: How many do we serve now, man?

Matt Dull: We have 68 kids at the center. [crosstalk 00:11:20] So almost doubles the center capacity and we serve student families, we serve faculty and staff families as well. So makes it exciting to have 55 more additional spots in the center. It's really high demand of our particular faculty and staff. And as people move to Boone, that's one of the first things, if they've got younger family members, if they got kiddos, then that's one of the deciding points sometimes of whether they choose to move to Boone or what makes that transition positive or not a great transition. So we've got a long wait list already for those 55 spots.

Dave Blanks: Yeah, I was reading 100 families.

Matt Dull: Yeah. Over 100 families are currently on waitlist. So yeah, we're continuing to work there. The structural work is really done on the building. The electrical, plumbing, mechanical work is, I would say, probably 90, 95% complete in the building. Drywall is up and finished out. The final paint is happening in a lot of the spaces. The next few months, we'll be working on flooring, doing final paint, bathroom fixtures, and accessories going in, doing the drop ceiling tile that the grids are in. But the ceilings have not been dropped in yet, so those will be dropped in. And then we're getting ready to start a phase of doing all the data, Wi-Fi, telecom equipment, getting all that installed in the building. That'll start here in the next couple of weeks. So yeah, really moving forward inside the building. Outside the building, we got a lot of site work that's continuing around the site. We got a large storm water retention system that's going in there, that site didn't have one originally. The original part of the child development center was a house. It was this old rock house from the early 1900's.

Dave Blanks: Yeah. And that part of it's still there.

Matt Dull: Part of it's still there and it's been kind of expanded around over the years. And so we're now installing a new storm water retention system that's going to collect the storm water from that whole kind of valley area, slow it down, get some of the sediment out before it drains into the city's storm water system. But also, we're adding in things like new playground spaces behind the building, we've got some new parking spaces going in, a new loading zone, re-routing in the entire driveway and how you access the facility, so that you have more queuing ability and so you don't end up having people queuing up on the road, on the main road there, Poplar Grove Road. And then repaving everything in that area. Too. So all that's kind of included. There's a new bus stop that's going in there as well. We have a number of student employees and some student parents that use the AppalCART to get to and from the center. So there'll be a new bus stop there with access to the center.

Dave Blanks: The location's really great because it's not like it's right in the total center of town, it's far enough out to where you don't get crazy traffic there.

Matt Dull: No. Yeah.

Dave Blanks: But it's close enough to be reached fairly quickly.

Matt Dull: Yeah. Yeah. You can be over from campus in just a few minutes, but it's not right in the middle of campus. And it also is pretty accessible, and you don't have a lot of issues with parking and that kind of stuff. Well, once we do all this expansion and add all of this. So it should... Yeah, it's a nice location and we're excited to be able to serve 55 more families there at the center.

Dave Blanks: Absolutely. Check out updates and some new pictures that have been taken on the future site, that's appstate.edu/future. And then you click on building the physical infrastructure and you'll see it in the list of the major current projects on that page. And you can see exactly what it's going to look like and what it currently looks like, and all that good stuff.

Matt Dull: Yeah. Lots of good stuff out there. Completion date is May of 2022 for the building. And then we have about two months or so of a process of actually getting each of the rooms in the center licensed. So excuse me, after you do the construction part, you actually have to basically, outfit the entire thing. So all your furniture has to be in, all the rooms have to be set up like kids are coming in the next day. And then those are licensed both, by our public health department, as well as the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education, DCDEE. Both of those entities have to come in and inspect each room and kind of look at the whole facility, and make sure it's ready for kids to come in before they'll give you your license to start having kids in the center. So that's about a [crosstalk 00:16:04] two month period or so, to get all that part done after we get the building turned over to the university.

Dave Blanks: Nice. It'll be a great addition, a fantastic expansion and it will be quickly utilized by those families that are on that waitlist.

Matt Dull: For sure. Yeah.

Dave Blanks: Matt, thanks a lot for your time today. If there's nothing else-

Matt Dull: No, that's it. That's great.

Dave Blanks: All right. I will bid you a fond farewell and we'll do it again.

Matt Dull: Sounds good.