Campus Construction Update, October 21, 2021
Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Matt Dull chats with University Communications' Dave Blanks about the construction progress for App State's newest residence hall, New River Hall, as well as the expansion work on the university's Child Development Center.
Transcript
Dave Blanks: Hey folks, what's up? This is Dave Blanks from University Communications, and I am back with another Campus Construction Update, joined by Matt Dull. Thanks for, thanks for coming in!
Matt Dull: Yeah. Glad to be back in the studio again this week.
Dave Blanks: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It's downright fall-esque out there, Matt.
Matt Dull: It is downright fall-esque.
Dave Blanks: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt Dull: Last week, beautiful week on campus.
Dave Blanks: Really was.
Matt Dull: Seventies, just an amazing week for that peak leaf season week.
Dave Blanks: Yeah.
Matt Dull: A lot of times we can get those really heavy rains when it's peak leaf season, and leaves stay up for three days.
Dave Blanks: Yeah.
Matt Dull: But really great weather last week. Little cooler this week, but still nice weather again.
Dave Blanks: Right. Yeah. It was a beautiful weekend. It's one of those like, "Yeah, Boone. Boone Rules. I'm so glad this is happening right now."
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: I'm really glad I'm here to observe this. How's construction going?
Matt Dull: Construction is going well, particularly now that two weeks ago we had a good amount of rain in Boone.
Dave Blanks: We really did.
Matt Dull: Probably four or five inches of rain.
Dave Blanks: Nonstop, and I didn't get my ... I was trying to put winter fertilizer stuff on my lawn.
Matt Dull: Oh, yeah.
Dave Blanks: I was like, "OK, I just got to do this before it starts raining." We were like, "OK, got to run this one errand," and then it started raining while I was on the errand.
Matt Dull: Yes. We lucked out. We did our over winter stuff, and then did a little bit of overseed of some thinner areas and got it in, literally the day before a week of perfect rain.
Dave Blanks: Is it luck, Matt, or is it skill? Because nice job.
Matt Dull: I don't know, but I thought, "Oh man, how perfect did this work out?"
Dave Blanks: Nice. Yeah, it's been some rainy weather and then some really beautiful weather.
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: What do we want to start out with?
Matt Dull: Well, we'll just jump right in. I guess, over at New River Hall.
Dave Blanks: OK. Lets jump in the New River.
Matt Dull: Yeah. New River Hall, things going well over there. If you've been by the site, or looked at it recently.
Dave Blanks: So many bricks.
Matt Dull: Yeah. A lot of the masonry work is continuing on the north elevation of the building. That's the side of the building that is on Rivers Street. You're kind of parallel to Rivers Street. If you've been by there recently, you'll know that we're kind of a pretty good ways up. I think we're about the fourth level of that. There are six floors in that building. Really to the end of this week, we'll be finishing masonry work on that elevation of the building. Then moving around the building, then moving on towards the courtyard section of the building.
Dave Blanks: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt Dull: It's really exciting. They almost have all the masonry work done on the Rivers Street side of the building, by the end of this week or so.
Dave Blanks: Looks fantastic.
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: Well, is it dried in, right? We are to that point or we're not?
Matt Dull: Yeah. We're getting really close.
Dave Blanks: OK.
Matt Dull: We've got a temporary roof membrane on the roof right now. We'll actually put in the permanent roof first week of December. Had a little bit of delays in materials, like everyone's seeing these days. Not too significantly, but the roof materials will be here end of November, and then that first week or two of December we'll be putting in the permanent roof. But we've got a temporary roof membrane on there, keep water from getting into the structure.
Matt Dull: Window installation started late, late last week. Windows will continue to be installed throughout the building, looking to have all of the windows in the building by the first week of November. By that point, you really will be dried in, really everywhere. You've got that temporary roof membrane and you've got all the windows, and that'll really allow us to go in and start, really in the next week or so, doing drywall on the fifth floor.
Matt Dull: When we're doing those windows, really starting at the top, working the way down, and that'll allow us, as we start finishes, to start at the top and work the way down as the windows get finished up. Starting with the fifth floor, on or around kind of October 20th, finishing up insulation, starting drywall. Then it'll take about two weeks per floor to do those finishes. When we're doing that, we're doing insulation, drywall, flooring, tile, finishing out the bathrooms, basically having a finished unit within about two weeks or so of starting.
Matt Dull: We should actually start seeing finished units in the building, first or second week of November. That top floor of the building will actually be finished out and ready for a punch list inspection. Moving pretty quickly through the process now, as we're getting ready to ... as soon as you get those windows in, you get those all framed out and be able to start putting up insulation and drywall.
Matt Dull: It'll move very quickly here as we progress through the last part of fall and into winter.
Dave Blanks: Nice, and when's the delivery date? Why do I always forget that? I should just put it on a Post-it Note.
Matt Dull: Yeah. Delivery date for New River Hall ...
Dave Blanks: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt Dull: ... is basically August 1. Ready for move-in for this upcoming fall 2022 semester for students.
Dave Blanks: OK. All right. August 1, 2022. I'm just writing it down, OK.
Matt Dull: Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Blanks: It's really going on a Post-it Note. Do you hear that? Post-it Note. How's the parking lot beside it?
Matt Dull: Yeah. Parking lot is doing pretty well. We are working on the rough grading right now, hauling off the excess soil that we don't need for the side or some of the unsuitable soils. Installation on the storm sewer and waterline extension, I think we talked last time. We're putting in a new water line that goes from New River Hall up to the Quinn Center, create a loop of our waterline.
Matt Dull: If we end up needing to turn off water supply in between buildings in the future, you actually have a kind of a loop or circular flow of water. You're not having to turn off the entire west side of campus if you need the water shut down.
Dave Blanks: Good, yeah. Good planning.
Matt Dull: That's being worked on in the next two weeks. The storm sewer or the storm waterlines that are going in to pull stormwater off of those new surface parking lots; those are being installed in the next two weeks or so. Then after those all get installed, we'll start putting in a base course and binder course of the asphalt and lay that down, basically making the almost complete parking lot. That should be finished up by probably about Thanksgiving. By the time that students are leaving for Thanksgiving break, should really have that all basically looking like a parking lot.
Matt Dull: It will stay as a laydown lot for materials and supplies for the contractor until we wrap up New River Hall. Then right as the contractor is finishing up New River Hall, as they're evacuating the site or leaving the site, they'll do a final top coat of asphalt on that parking lot and then do the striping and get that ready for student and faculty and staff use.
Dave Blanks: Cool.
Matt Dull: Yeah, so it should look like a parking lot by around Thanksgiving, but then all that final finish work will take place next summer as they get ready to turn that over to the university, when they turn over New River Hall.
Dave Blanks: What else do you want to cover today, Matt? Is that all on New River?
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: OK.
Matt Dull: That's all the highlights.
Dave Blanks: OK.
Matt Dull: Really the demolition is done with Gardner/Coltrane, that finished up a few weeks ago and that's that parking lot we're talking about. It's really all focused on that site right now, New River Hall and that parking lot that's adjacent to it.
Dave Blanks: Cool. Well, Matt, as you know, we mostly cover the west side campus residence halls when you join us, but we are going to have Mr. Nick Katers, who has been on the podcast before. Nick is the associate vice chancellor for facilities management. He'll be joined by Michelle Novacek. Michelle is the director of real estate and external communications. They're very knowledgeable about other construction projects we have on campus, not just the residence halls. Here sometime in the near future, they'll cover some other things. I drove by The Child Development Center today.
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: Just on my way to work, took a little different route and yeah, they're doing some big, some big work right over there.
Matt Dull: Yeah. The Child Development Center expansion is also another Student Affairs project.
Dave Blanks: Wait, so that's you? That's in your ...
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: OK.
Matt Dull: Yeah, and obviously Nick's team over in the Planning, Design and Construction.
Dave Blanks: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt Dull: They're managing the project.
Dave Blanks: Right. They're moving a lot of dirt over there.
Matt Dull: Yeah. A lot of site work going on over there, really trying to get the site ready for construction. So having to do some of the rough grading to get it down to the right elevations. There is a small drainage ... what do we call it, a stream.
Dave Blanks: Right.
Matt Dull: There's not usually a stream in it all the time. That's being kind of put into culverts. That's going in so we can make a big circular drive over at the Child Development Center, make it easier for parent-children drop off.
Dave Blanks: Right.
Matt Dull: With parents.
Dave Blanks: Yeah, yeah.
Matt Dull: Queue up on property versus queuing up on ...
Dave Blanks: In the road.
Matt Dull: In the road and Poplar Grove.
Dave Blanks: Huge.
Matt Dull: Adding some more parking spaces ...
Dave Blanks: That's huge.
Matt Dull: ... for the staff over there. It adds about 55 new spaces for children at the Child Development Center.
Dave Blanks: Great!
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: By that's huge, I mean that's a really big deal. Having people out of the way of the traffic. Dropping my kid off at school, I now really appreciate everything that goes into that.
Matt Dull: Right. What that means. Yes.
Dave Blanks: It's a lot that it entails.
Matt Dull: Yeah. It means adding a little bit more of a loop driveway to that area, just to have more spaces for people to queue up.
Dave Blanks: Cool.
Matt Dull: Of course child care centers are also interesting because you don't usually just drop off the infant.
Dave Blanks: No, yeah.
Matt Dull: You actually are parking, you're going inside the building.
Dave Blanks: Right.
Matt Dull: You're escorting your child into a classroom. It's a little bit different even from, thinking about elementary or middle school drop off, where you're ...
Dave Blanks: They're a little ... they're a little more ...
Matt Dull: A little more able to equipped.
Dave Blanks: Yeah.
Matt Dull: Leave the car, wave goodbye while you're still in the car and you drive off.
Dave Blanks: Yeah.
Matt Dull: Having to also think about that on the design as well.
Dave Blanks: Right.
Matt Dull: Yeah.
Dave Blanks: It's a big difference. Hopefully we'll get into that and some other topics with Nick and with Michelle when they record one. I'm going to stop babbling and thank you for your time, Matt. Thanks so much.
Matt Dull: Yeah. Thanks, Dave.
Dave Blanks: All right, we'll do it again.
Matt Dull: We'll do it again.
