Campus Construction Update, September 17, 2021

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 and preparation of the site of the former Gardner and Coltrane halls — an area that will become surface parking.

Transcript

Dave Blanks: Hey folks, what's up? This is Dave Blanks from University Communications, back once again with a Campus Construction Update, joined, as I am so often joined, by Mr. Matt Dull.

Matt Dull: Hello, hello! Hey Dave.

Dave Blanks: Hey, Matt! What's going on?

Matt Dull: Oh, it is a busy time, particularly with students being back, and we're really having a lot of people on campus. Really back to a lot of in-person activities, we're trying to line up for students, and actually have things to do outdoors.

Dave Blanks: I'm so glad they're here, Matt.

Matt Dull: They are here. It's exciting to have them back. There's just a lot more going on on campus. It feels busy, and I think it's just because there's just so much activity going on on campus right now. Lots going on at New River, our last residence hall.

Dave Blanks: I know.

Matt Dull: We signed off on Laurel Creek at the last podcast and students have moved in, and now we're down to literally the last building.

Dave Blanks: Right. So New River, and that is ... where are we on New River? Because it looks very good. A lot of progress going on on New River.

Matt Dull: Yeah, lots going on. On schedule with New River Hall. So we are just now wrapping up the framing, that's kind of finished up over the past couple of weeks based on ... we have three wings of the building. But that's wrapping up across the whole building footprint this week. Now, then, moving into doing that Tyvek wrapping around the outside, get of envelope of the building. That's on for most of it.

Dave Blanks: Yeah, that's nearly done.

Matt Dull: Most of the building. And then also, we've put in a temporary roof membrane. It's not the full installation everything for the roof, but kind of a membrane that goes on first, that just helps keep the building dry, so we can start doing some of those dry activities indoors.

Dave Blanks: Is it one of those high-tech blue tarps like I have in my shed? Is that what it is?

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: I have used that in a pinch to stay dry.

Matt Dull: It's a little more high-tech than that.

Dave Blanks: More advanced!

Matt Dull: A little more advanced than the —

Dave Blanks: Blue tarp.

Matt Dull: The Blue Hawk, blue tarp or whatever, yeah, yeah.

Dave Blanks: That's it, it is. It's the same company that makes my cheap paint brushes.

Matt Dull: Yeah, that's right. That's right. They are not a sponsor of the show today.

Dave Blanks: Blue Hawk, brought to you by ... No, not a sponsor, sadly. But, the building's not quite done with the exterior envelope, but very close to being done.

Matt Dull: Yeah, not quite done, but really making progress on that. So, we've got that Tyvek wrapping on, we've got a roof membrane coming in this week and next week to really keep water out of the building, so we can really get a lot of the dry activities started inside the building. That also really helps us because we're getting ready to go into the winter months. It's hard to say that, or into the fall when it really starts getting cooler. And it hadn't felt like that until recently, and all of a sudden it's like, "Ooh, we've got mornings that are in the 50s."

Dave Blanks: Had a snap. It was like 47°.

Matt Dull: Over the weekend, that's right, yeah.

Dave Blanks: Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative). Brisk.

Matt Dull: Fall is coming, it's hard to say that and put that into actual words, but fall is coming. And with fall, often in Boone, in early winter, comes rain and cooler weather. So really to try to get roof membrane on the building, get that Tyvek exterior skin. We're also right now putting in window frames, we started that last week, that'll continue. Then once those frames go in, we'll actually put the glazing, or the window panes themselves, will start going in. That'll really, pretty much, finish drying out the building, so that we can then start doing things like putting in insulation, starting drywall. All that will really start mid-October, we'll start with installation, moving into drywall from there. Got a few more weeks before we're really dried in, ready to do those interior activities, but we're probably a month out from really being able to say we're dried in.

Dave Blanks: That's good timing, based on the weather.

Matt Dull: Yeah. Perfect timing, masonry work will also start probably in about two weeks out, so that'll really finish out that veneer that lays on top of the building skin. You can really tell what the building's going to look like right now just by the framing and the structure. You really get to see what that looks like once the brick starts going on. You really get a sense of the aesthetic of the building a lot more.

Dave Blanks: Absolutely. Well, I think if there's nothing else on New River, we were going to move over to Gardner/Coltrane.

Matt Dull: Yeah, Gardner/Coltrane.

Dave Blanks: Yeah.

Matt Dull: What Gardner/Coltrane?

Dave Blanks: What are you talking about? What residence halls are those?

Matt Dull: Yeah.

Dave Blanks: They are no longer.

Matt Dull: We finished the demolition process on those, down to the footers of the building. This week is really a focus on getting those footers out, because we've got a lot of underground utilities that need to go in there, so we got to remove those footers so they're not in the way. Starting next week, we've got a domestic water line going through. We've got a stormwater line going through, where we're pulling stormwater off the site, because that's going to be a parking lot. So you got to have, it's a lot of impermeable surface up there, you got to pull all that water off and pull it somewhere. All that underground infrastructure is going to start next week. All the excavation related to that, we'll start next week. This week, really we'll wrap up pulling out those footers and getting all of the demoed material off the site. The goal is to try to get as much as that, if not all of that, off the site by the time of our first home football game, which is this weekend.

Dave Blanks: Awesome.

Matt Dull: Trying to get that to be a cleared site, being able to get in and do some of those utility work. So it'll continue to be an active construction site throughout the rest of the fall and spring semesters. That parking lot will open up in the fall of '22 with the rest of New River Hall. But there's still going to be deliveries to the construction site.

Dave Blanks: Sure, yeah.

Matt Dull: But once you get all the material off, there's less dump trucks coming through with debris and heavy equipment.

Dave Blanks: There are some newer, I don't know if they're permanent, semi-permanent pedestrian crosswalks that have been added, that are of great use I feel like, in that area.

Matt Dull: Yeah. What we have now is not the final condition of what it'll look like, but there are about the approximate locations of what it's finally going to look like. Eventually there's going to be, I think they call it a speed table, instead of like a speed bump, which is just a little, half-circle bump. It's going to be more like a tabletop, or a flat wide area.

Dave Blanks: We have those at Holmes, right?

Matt Dull: Yeah, exactly, at Holmes, that back side of Holmes that helps slow traffic down a little bit on Stadium, gives people a little bit of a break up Stadium Drive, and also tries to get people to go through the elevated crosswalk. It's going to be basically like when you walk off the curb, that same height. All the way across the road.

Dave Blanks: OK, yeah, yeah. Sure.

Matt Dull: Hopefully that'll help slow down traffic a little bit.

Dave Blanks: And encourage people to actually use it.

Matt Dull: Encourage people to actually use it, because they'll be nice, big wide [crosstalk 00:06:25] tables.

Dave Blanks: Path of least resistance. They'd be like, "I don't even have to step down here."

Matt Dull: Exactly. And really create ... it's coming straight from that plaza between Trivette Hall and Thunder Hill. It'll come straight out from there like it's just one continuous walk, over towards the parking lot right at New River Hall.

Dave Blanks: Nice. OK.

Matt Dull: That's the last thing going in, just so it doesn't get messed up as we're bringing in all these heavy trucks, and that kind of stuff. And that'd be the last piece there.

Dave Blanks: Excellent. Any other updates for today, Mr. Dull?

Matt Dull: I think that hits the highlights today.

Dave Blanks: I appreciate your time as always. Let's do it again sometime soon.

Matt Dull: Absolutely. Thanks, Dave.

Dave Blanks: Thank you. All right.