Campus Construction Update, September 23, 2019

Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Matt Dull shares updates concerning construction projects on the west side of Appalachian's campus, including details on the construction progress for the new residence halls.

Transcript

Dave Blanks: Hey folks, this is Dave Blanks from University Communications. We are back once again with a Campus Construction Update. By we, I mean me and Mr. Matt Dull. Hello, Matt.

Matt Dull: Hey, Dave. How are ya?

Dave Blanks: I'm great. I'm glad you're here once again. We had some slight technical difficulties, but I seem to have gotten rid of the gremlin that was in my recording stuff, so hopefully we'll get her rolling here with some campus construction updates. Do you have some of those?

Matt Dull: There are some updates this week.

Dave Blanks: OK, cool. Let's jump right in?

Matt Dull: Yeah, let's jump in. So how about building 100?

Dave Blanks: How about it?

Matt Dull: A perfect place to start. Building 100 — we've got a lot of things going on there. Structural steel installation is finished up on that building, so that helps us really start continuing to move forward on a lot of the framing work that's being done, so continuing doing framing work in the next month or so, working on getting that building envelope complete before the colder weather begins. That's an everyday part of the job on building 100.

Dave Blanks: So, you're saying all the structural steel is in place.

Matt Dull: That's right.

Dave Blanks: That means it's not going to get any bigger than how it is now?

Matt Dull: You can see the whole footprint now. It's got all the foundation work done; it's got that structural steel in place. At least about a floor on each section of that building is framed out, so you can really now see the entire shape of what that footprint of that building's going to look like.

Dave Blanks: OK, cool. All right, what did I interrupt? You were about to say something else.

Matt Dull: Yeah, so we're doing other things, again, similar to some of the updates we were doing for building 200, because 100's just a few weeks behind. Not necessarily —

Dave Blanks: By design.

Matt Dull: By design, not by schedule. It's just a bigger building. Building 100, we're continuing to work on stairwells, so laying that CMU block, installing the stairs. We've finished up the elevator shafts, so the shafts elevator will go in, those are finished up. So we're trying to finish a lot of the framing, the elevator, stairwell shafts, trying to finish all that up over the next few weeks.

Dave Blanks: Hey, it is getting fall-like out there.

Matt Dull: It is getting fall-like out there. Although the nice part is it's been fairly dry weather, good for construction. I think some of the trees and plants would appreciate maybe a little bit more rain than we've had, but it's been fairly dry and nice weather.

Dave Blanks: It won't be much longer though, and we'll will be like, "OK, let's work inside now."

Matt Dull: Yeah, that's right. That's right, so try to get as much done now as we can while it is comfortable to be outside.

Let's see, other things going on ... plumbing and electrical rough-ins throughout building 100 are occurring now. Already starting to get some of the Tyvek wrap around and sheeting around one section of that building, and actually we'll start putting in some windows this week, into one of the sections of building 100. So, even though it's a few weeks, schedule-wise, behind building 200, we're able to go ahead and start one part of that building, actually going ahead and putting some windows in.

Dave Blanks: Cool. Right on.

Matt Dull: So, moving over to building 200: Tyvek wrapping of that building finishing up — that allows us to start our window installation. That began last week. That will continue into October. So windows and all the window system going into that building right now. That'll help wrap out some of the exterior envelope of the building. We're doing plumbing rough-ins, and that continues through the first week of October.

Dave Blanks: OK, what's a rough-in?

Matt Dull: So, a rough-in is thinking about plumbing rough-in; it's all the things that are behind the wall, it's under the concrete slab, it's your drain pipes, it's your supply lines that eventually you're going to connect to faucets or toilets, shower heads. But it's all the —

Dave Blanks: Light fixtures?

Matt Dull: Light fixtures when you're talking about electrical rough-in. So it's all of the backbone, if you will, that infrastructure you need throughout the building that helps support the later fixtures you're going to install in the building.

Dave Blanks: Behind the scenes.

Matt Dull: Yeah, so it's the behind the scenes, the stuff behind the wall, stuff you're not going to see if you're one of the residents living there. But it is really important.

Dave Blanks: Yeah, we need that stuff.

Matt Dull: Also finishing up this week on building 200, we've got the installation of the roof trusses finishing up this week, and then we're also starting the installation of the roof insulation layers and that final roof membrane.

Dave Blanks: That's hard to say: The installation of the insulation layer.

Matt Dull: Insulation installation. Easy for you to say.

Dave Blanks: You did a good job though. All right, so that's happening this week?

Matt Dull: That's happening, that begins this week, we'll continue that through early October. So again, trying to get that outside building envelope really dried-in for that winter, that cold season and wetter season that we have up here in the mountains.

Dave Blanks: Right, so the roof will be on it.

Matt Dull: Roof will be on it, not next week, but within the first of October, the final roof membrane and everything will be on the structure.

Dave Blanks: Gotcha. All right, cool, so trusses complete, need the roof to be protected from the weather. What else is going on, Matt?

Matt Dull: We're starting, the latter part of this week, starting that exterior masonry and brick installation as well.

Dave Blanks: On 200.

Matt Dull: On building 200, yeah. Right after we get the Tyvek finished up, we get those windows put in, we'll then come right behind that installing some precast stone at the bottom foundation and bottom level of the building. And then it will be kind of that red brick that you're used to seeing all over campus.

Dave Blanks: Wait a minute, can I remember the name of it? I can, it's Guilford.

Matt Dull: It's Old Guilford.

Dave Blanks: Old Guildford, dang. I was close.

Matt Dull: Old Guilford will be going up, and that ... oh, I'll teach you another color.

Dave Blanks: Oh, yeah? All right.

Matt Dull: The green of the windows, you know all of our Appalachian ... a lot of our window frames, they're that classic kind of green color that you see everywhere.

Dave Blanks: OK, yeah, what's that called?

Matt Dull: Hartford Green.

Dave Blanks: Hartford, like Connecticut?

Matt Dull: Oh, I don't know, maybe we shouldn't say that.

Dave Blanks: Is it?

Matt Dull: But yeah, Hartford like Connecticut. Hartford Green. So, now you know our colors, that Hartford Green and ...

Dave Blanks: And the Old Guilford.

Matt Dull: Old Guilford. And when we actually go and start doing some of these site wall installations, we'll actually use elkstone, it's that granite-looking stone that we see everywhere. That's elkstone; it's a fieldstone with a certain kind of color and look to it that we use all over campus.

Dave Blanks: All right. So wait — all the walls, the little walls that you see around campus, that's elkstone? We're in Anne Belk right now, so we have elkstone, the little short walls? You know what I'm saying, between us and Rankin?

Matt Dull: Yeah, between this building and Rankin, or this building and Roess Dining.

Dave Blanks: Elkstone.

Matt Dull: All those little knee walls or retaining walls you see around campus, that's elkstone.

Dave Blanks: That's cool.

Matt Dull: Yeah, you can see elkstone, there's a variety of caps, either a precast cap, which you see in most places on campus. Some of them have a granite cap to it. But yeah, the stone itself, that fieldstone that's in there, that variety of shapes and sizes, that kind of natural cut look, is elkstone.

Dave Blanks: That's cool too.

Matt Dull: Yeah. So again, in this project we're really trying to match the campus standards for colors and what people are used to seeing on campus. So retaining walls carrying that same kind of elkstone look, and the elkstone material. The lights, the bronze-ish kind of colored lights that we have all over campus —

Dave Blanks: The streetlight things?

Matt Dull: The pedestrian size, the ones on all of our walkways around campus. They look like the old kind of lantern.

Dave Blanks: I remember what they're called. Hold on, it's called ... dang, hold on, just give me a second. I know it. It's something like herdverd. Hold on, I can do it. Nerdverd. That's not right, no.

Matt Dull: You're close.

Dave Blanks: I'm so close. What is it?

Matt Dull: It's a Sternberg.

Dave Blanks: Sternberg.

Matt Dull: Sternberg lanterns. So yeah, those will be throughout the project on that side too, again, matching those campus standards. Sternberg lanterns, they're just beautiful fixtures.

Dave Blanks: They're really nice.

Matt Dull: So they'll have a variety of sizes, and we also use, in a few places in the project, at the main entrances of the building, actually we'll have those installed as wall sconces as you go in. So a much smaller version, but to match and tie in.

Dave Blanks: Do we have that anywhere else?

Matt Dull: Some of our newer buildings on campus, as we've constructed those, we've tried to tie in that element. The parking deck, we've actually got those on order and those will be installed in the next month or two. There's a pretty long lead time on those, but we just didn't get those installed. So we've got some temporary lighting installed on the front of the parking deck, but the new parking deck over on the site will also have those wall sconces that are those Sternberg lanterns. It'll match the rest of campus.

Dave Blanks: Not nerdherd, or whatever I said. Sternberg.

Matt Dull: Sternberg. But yeah, that's been kind of fun too, is to think about, when you're designing all of this new space, and you're really redesigning 14 acres of campus and trying to get all of it to the same campus standard.

Dave Blanks: You want it to look like Appalachian.

Matt Dull: Yeah, you really want it to look like Appalachian. And it's also a way to kind of advance the standard, and really make a larger swath of campus look more similar. And that's really hard to do when you're doing one building renovation or one building construction at a time. That's the nice part about doing five structures done at the same time, and really redeveloping.

Dave Blanks: Is that what it is, is it five?

Matt Dull: Yeah, you've got four residence halls and you've got the parking deck: Five structures on a 14-acre site. When you think about all the utility work and all of the sidewalks and roadways and green spaces that are going in there, it's about 14 acres totally redeveloped.

Dave Blanks: OK, that's a lot.

Matt Dull: All to make it look all the same and make it look like our campus standards.

Dave Blanks: Absolutely. Well, I know it's going to look great.

Matt Dull: Yeah. So I think that's it for the updates I've got this week.

Dave Blanks: That's all you got?

Matt Dull: That's all I got.

Dave Blanks: All right, well —

Matt Dull: It sounds like a little bit, but there is a lot going on.

Dave Blanks: No, I think it's a lot. If people would like to see pictures, if you're just listening, check out the future site, that's ...

Matt Dull: ... appstate.edu/future.

Dave Blanks: Right, and then you click on Building the Physical Infrastructure, and you can see the latest pics.

Matt Dull: Yeah, lots going on, about to hit 100,000 person hours in the next month or so, so an amazing amount of work has happened on the project.

Dave Blanks: That's quite a bit.

Matt Dull: That is quite a bit.

Dave Blanks: Matt, thanks so much for coming by.

Matt Dull: Absolutely, thanks for having me back.

Dave Blanks: Well, we got it done.

Matt Dull: Nerdberg, huh?

Dave Blanks: Nerdberg.

Matt Dull: You were so close.

Dave Blanks: Nerd ... because I used to always say Sternberg.