A video of the new dorm on campus. Some call it New Rand, but it is officially called 280 College. Produced by alums Asad Butt and Liam Clarke.

Fall arrives, leaves: Changing foliage frames 280 College St. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

There’s a scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where Clarence, guardian angel to James Stewart’s character George Bailey, comments that in Heaven, nobody uses money.

Bailey retorts, “Comes in pretty handy down here, bub.”

A parallel may apply to a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ construction project that has its own holiday connection. The project isn’t inspiring like Alumni Walk, magnificent like the new dining Commons or heartwarming like the new student housing. But a new parking lot behind Merrill Gymnasium that should open around Thanksgiving will come in handy, bub, easing the squeeze that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ motorists have felt the past six months.

An asphalt base coat for the 70-vehicle lot was laid Oct. 19. Between now and the holiday, a path will be paved from the new lot to the existing walkway between the athletics complex and Central Avenue. Merrill’s existing back doors will open onto new concrete pads and the parking area.

North Bardwell Street crosses the three main Alumni Walk paths. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The parking crunch began with the removal of spaces behind the old tennis courts on Central Avenue for the new Commons, and along Andrews Road for Alumni Walk. But Paul Farnsworth, manager of those projects, reported that the college will ultimately realize a net gain of 17 spaces.

He added that three existing handicapped spaces near Alumni Walk are being widened and restriped to meet current standards, and four new spaces are being added next to them. Six spaces will be created next to the new Commons for service vehicles.

Alumni Walk: If 90 percent of life is just showing up, as Woody Allen reputedly said, 90 percent of construction work seems to be paving.

The major paving for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ new east-west connector was finished on Oct. 22, Farnsworth reported. That includes the many asphalt paths that crisscross the walk and a larger blacktop expanse extending North Bardwell Street — better known as the parking area for Smith and Adams halls — across the Alumni Walk corridor.

Looking west on the walk. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

At the same time, the service road behind Chase Hall, from Campus Avenue to Alumni Gym, got its long-awaited final coat of blacktop.

Also on the asphalt front, preparations are underway for a base coat at the foot of the new amphitheater, situated between Pettengill and Lane Halls and facing Lake Andrews. That base will be topped with an apron of the same cut-and-polished asphalt blocks used on the main Alumni Walk paths. Farnsworth noted that the concrete risers and the steps for the amphitheater are done.

Finally in Alumni Walk news, installation of LED lights in the concrete benches has begun, and the job should beÌýfinished next week.

New dining Commons: History of sorts was made during the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-Middlebury football game Oct. 20 when Panther kicker Jack Britton’s extra point sailed through the uprights and smack into the huge windows on the Garcelon Field side of Commons.

The first pigskin-glass contact in Commons history “made quite a thud,” said Jay Burns, editor of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Magazine. “You could see the glass vibrate.” The incident didn’t faze Farnsworth, also in attendance, who said that the contractor has no concerns about the glass breaking.

New Commons construction. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Just in case, though, Farnsworth had already ordered a net to catch high-flying pigskins.

In fact, most of the window glass has been installed, with the west entrance and the fireplace lounge among major features still unglazed. Farnsworth added that the skylight for the ventilation monitor — that big box on top of the roof — should be shipped by the end of the month. Once that’s installed, the last patch of slate roofing, on the south side, can be laid.

All of this work will make the shell of the building essentially weathertight.

Speaking of roofs and weathertightness, Farnsworth said that air handlers had been mounted on the roof over the kitchen on Oct. 19. That equipment won’t be operating for some time but at least, as Farnsworth pointed out, “it seals the roof openings.”

Meanwhile, masons have made good progress laying pavers around the new Commons. The main entrance approaches are being covered with the same kind of gray granite used at the College Street entrance to Alumni Walk, while walks and other areas get the asphalt blocks.

Commons’ west entrance. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Also echoing Alumni Walk is a sitting area along the north side of the building at the entrance to the Emporium, the facility’s “convenience store.” Here, along with a table and wooden benches, you’ll eventually find polished concrete benches resembling the risers in the amphitheater.

Inside Commons, the recycled wood cladding on the dining hall ceiling is about half completed. And the paving — er, tiling — of the servery walls is in progress. There was a delay there, Farnsworth noted, because the tiles originally ordered from Italy were held up in shipping. They’ve been supplanted by tiles from Texas that arrived on the 20th.

Finally, in our effort to leave no piece of paving news unreported, bub, Farnsworth said that concrete for the floor of the loading dock will be poured next week. The concrete is formulated to resist the corrosive effects of road salt.

Readers write: Shirley Serrao ’11 wanted to know what provisions would be made for playing music in the new Commons. “The facility has an integrated speaker system,” Farnsworth replied. “The rooms are divided into zones that can be controlled independently for music or public address.

New Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“The fireplace lounge is also equipped with its own audio amplifier, microphone and speaker system so you could DJ an iPod performance or amplify a small string quartet.”

Serrao also wrote: “I can’t wait for the new Commons to open; we’re going to have another fireplace!”

New student housing: Serrao is likely referring to the fireplace in 280 College Street — specifically, in that signature gathering place called Frank’s Lounge. Made possible by a gift from Bruce Stangle ’70 and Emily Siegel Stangle ’72, the lounge named in honor of Bruce’s father, Frank J. Stangle, will be dedicated during a Trustee luncheon on Oct. 26.

Meanwhile, about 10 workers, give or take a few according to the day, are still on the job at 280 College St. Some are continuing to work on exterior trim. Others are pursuing the building’s commissioning, a process in which a third party — local architecture firm Harriman Associates — is testing the building’s nonstructural systems.

We were interested to learn from project manager Pam Wichroski that the commissioning process is now into the automated controls for systems such as heat, plumbing and some of the electrical.

She explained that computers in Facility Services headquarters, two long blocks away at the Cutten Maintenance Center, are being tied into the residence’s computers so that these systems can be monitored and even remotely controlled.

“For example, if there’s no hot water in a bathroom, we can take a look and make sure that the pumps are running, water heaters are running, what the temperatures are set at,” Wichroski said. “And we can adjust that remotely.” Facility Services staff are being trained to use these systems now.

Frank’s Lounge. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The same network of sensors, controls and computers will feed information to the “dashboard” monitor in the building’s center core enabling residents to monitor their resource use. This display, slated to go into service soon, will initially register the usage for the whole building. Later it will be modified to show data for different sections of the building.

As for the exterior trim work around glass-walled areas that has been going on all autumn, the contractor has had issues in making the window system airtight, Wichroski explained. The College has brought in a third party to test and monitor this work, in a parallel to the third-party commissioning process mentioned above.

“We’re making sure it’s absolutely right before the final finish goes on,” she said. Wichroski did not say “bub,” but we could hear it in her tone.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you, bub. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

Fireside chat: Donna Rampersad ’08 of Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago, speaks with Kimal McCarthy ’09 of Nantucket, Mass.,Ìýin Frank’s Lounge at the new student housing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The new dining Commons should be open for business when students return from break on Feb. 25, project manager Paul Farnsworth reported. And it’s hoped that construction work will be complete about a month prior to the opening.

While there’s still plenty to do on the 60,000-square-foot facility, recent progress has been “amazing,” Farnsworth said. “You walk through and notice things, and it’s like, ‘When did they do that?’ ”

At this point, he explained, a kind of snowball effect is prevailing. The more things that are finished, the more things can be finished.

The construction site is fenceless along the Commons’ north face.
(Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College).

“If there’s something they can do without being in the way of something else, it’s being done,” he said.

So, for instance, the wiring for the public address system is in place. Sprinkler heads are being installed. Even shelf brackets in custodial closets are being hung.

But the biggest news may be that meetings have begun in anticipation of the building’s commissioning — the process of bringing in a third party to test mechanical, electrical and other systems. As with the new student housing, the local architecture firm Harriman Associates will perform the commissioning.

Seen through glass, the dining hall’s wood ceiling. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Other big news? Heat from the campus steam plant was turned on in the new Commons during the last week of October. “It was a big milestone,” Farnsworth said. And on Nov. 5,Ìýthe emergency generator’s diesel engineÌýwas tested. That was significant for the entire campus, since a set of electric pumps that return “used steam” — condensate — to the central steam plant is located in Commons. If electricity goes out during a winter storm, at least there will be heat.

The decorative recycled-wood ceiling veneer over the main dining area is complete, although, as Farnsworth reminded us, “there’s a difference between complete and accepted.” Let the tweaking begin. Light fixtures in that area are being installed, too. “They hang down, so it adds depth to the ceiling,” Farnsworth said. “It looks nicer” than the unadorned wood strips.

Birches at Commons’ east entrance. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Nearby, the wall tiles in the servery are virtually finished. Black granite veneer has gone up in a number of interior sites, from the shaft leading up to the central skylight to the space around the grand staircase near the dining hall. And construction of that staircase itself is well along.

Meanwhile, Farnsworth expects delivery of only two more tractor-trailer loads of kitchen equipment, both this month.

High atop the building, the first section of the central skylight should be installed in the boxlike ventilation monitor by Nov. 12, Farnsworth said. Most of the building’s windows are in place, with the fireplace lounge glass being the major section still outstanding.

Meanwhile, at ground level, the construction fence is gone from the worksite bordering Garcelon Field, and sod has been laid there.

Around the corner near the east entrance, trademark Alumni Walk paper birches have been planted. Sitting nearby, their roots bundled up, waiting to be planted, are several serviceberry trees (aka juneberry, shadblow, shadbush or Amelanchier canadensis). Stored near Central Avenue now, they’ll actually be planted in a new garden visible from the dining hall, near the Class of 1910 Gate.

The serviceberries are highly decorative trees that leaf out early in spring and make an attractive white fuzz in the process. They also produce edible berries in the summer (if you’re just too hungry to struggle onward to the Commons) and showy foliage in autumn.

The trees will be set in a field of smooth, small black stones, echoing the dark gray granite that is such a dominant motif, and a new one to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, on the Commons and Alumni Walk. Similar small stones, Farnsworth noted, will be laid on the small awning-like roofs around the building. The idea is to mask gunk that accumulates in such areas over time and that would be visible from higher windows.

Turf stacked near the plaza at the 1910 Gate. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Readers write: Helon Hoffer ’08 had a question about the asphalt pavers on the wider of Alumni Walk’s two main paths. This 20-foot-wide lane is divided lengthwise into two patterns. “Why is it split like this?” Helon asked.

Farnsworth responded: “The concept for Alumni Walk was two 10-foot-wide parallel paths. However, emergency vehicle access required us to make one path 20 feet wide. So we kept the concept of the two 10-foot paths through the pattern in the paving. Half of the 20-foot path is paved the same way as the 10-foot path.”

The amphitheater’s base at Lane Hall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Alumni Walk: Although it’s virtually complete, the last section of the walk, stretching 240 feet westward from the new Commons, remains fenced in to protect the new grass. (New grass elsewhere in the vicinity hasn’t been so lucky, as protective string cordons have been yanked out and the emerging sprouts trampled in spots.) The fence will be removed “before winter really hits,” Farnsworth said.

So there’s at least one reason to look forward to winter.

Within the fence, a wide lane of asphalt pavers extendsÌýthe Commons entrance plaza southward to join, via the reconstructed 1910 Gate, the Alumni Gym service road.

Finally, the amphitheater occupying the banking between Lane and Pettengill halls is about done. All that remains is some finish paving around the plaza at its base, the placement of grass around the big concrete risers, and the installation of a handrail along the staircase.

Those steps, which go from the Lake Andrews parking lot to Alumni Walk, will be electrically heated to keep snow and ice from building up. “With the numbers of people that use that and the length of a snowstorm, you could have someone there sweeping them continuously,” Farnsworth explained. “It just made sense from a safety standpoint to melt the snow off.”

New student housing: Project manager Pam Wichroski laughed when Campus Construction Update, feeling an emotion like childhood impatience on Christmas morning, asked: “Are we done yet?”

280 College Street. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Not quite, she replied. But we’re getting there. The exterior wood ceilings underneath the bridges — midair breezeways that link the building’s three sections — are about finished. But the ceiling sections that abut the buildings still need to be closed up with an insulating exterior coating resembling plaster.

In addition, Wichroski said, crews will be using an elaborate vibrating vacuum system to remove hardened dust deposits from the air ducts — stuff that regular vacuuming won’t touch.

Beyond that, and details like signage and pavement stripes, much of what remains is what insiders call “punch-list items” — details that were revealed, by the punch-list inspection, to need more work. For example, Wichroski offered tasks like “touching up drywall and paint, cleaning paint off things that paint doesn’t belong on, touching up seams in carpeting that we didn’t think were all that great. Minor things.”

“We’re moving from the east flanker,” or wing, “doing the punch-list, and then we’ll go to the west flanker,” she said. “Each side’s taken about two weeks to do. And then there’s the center building — a lot of that work, we’re going to try to hold off on until Christmas break. We don’t want them doing any work while finals are going on.”

As the earth churns. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

And after that? “The intent is that this phase is final. So they’re going through and then we’ll take a look at it again, and hopefully this time through that’s it. They’re done.”

Stay tuned, and have a happy Thanksgiving. Campus Construction Update returns the week of Nov. 26.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you, bub. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: See an index of earlier Campus Construction Updates.ÌýWe aim to publish every other week.

From left, Ladd Library, Alumni Gym, Roger Bill and the new Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Crosstown traffic: A pedestrian crosses the Alumni Walk site in front of Pettengill. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Upcoming road closures will add a certain frisson of adventure to life at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

On Friday, July 20, College Street will be closed at Mountain Avenue for the construction of a raised pedestrian crossing, or traffic table, to link Alumni Walk with the new student housing. Signage will help direct motorists to alternate routes.

That closure will last only a day, although the street will be restricted to a single traffic lane during the three days prior.

The Leahey Field steam-line trench. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

But a project starting 10 days later will be more inconvenient for motorists in the vicinity of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

In order to run utilities between the eastern and central portions of campus, Central Avenue will be closed for an entire week starting July 30, said Paul Farnsworth, project manager for the new dining Commons and Alumni Walk construction.

(Update to the Update: Facility Services announced another closure starting July 19, as the front entrance to Pettengill Hall will be taken out of service for the installation of a new entrance plaza. The entrance will be reopened July 28, said clerk of the works John Rasmussen. Access to the building will be available through the side entrance that faces Smith Hall and the rear entrance.)

The Central Avenue dig will accommodate a number of utilities, Farnsworth explained — steam, water, gas, electricity and telecommunications, all aligned with a trench already open across Leahy Field to the Cutten Maintenance Center and the campus steam plant.

Elsewhere on campus, or under it, the laying of steam lines is progressing steadily. A new connection to Alumni Gym that had been delayed by a bad part is finished, and hookups to Dana Chemistry and Hedge Hall are proceeding on schedule.

New dining Commons: Granite, brick and slate are now present on all four sides of Commons. Masons sheathing the exterior with brick and dark gray granite are nearly done with the east and south walls, and moving fast along the west and north.

“There’s not a whole lot more exterior stone to do,” Farnsworth said.

Especially attractive will be a curved granite wall at the east entrance, which masons began in early July. The granite, to be complemented by large windows and zinc trim, “is going to look pretty slick,” said Farnsworth.

The Commons roof with a skylight and the ventilation monitor. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Workers laying the slate roof cleared an obstacle on July 11 when a representative from project architect Sasaki Associates dealt with a few lingering issues involving the ventilation monitor, the big box at the peak of the roof. Once that structure is done, the roofers can finish the slate.

Meanwhile, most window openings have been covered with the kind of polyethylene sheeting familiar from the student housing project. An exception is a large window at the east entrance, which remains open because general contractor Consigli Construction hoists materials and equipment through it into the second story.

The windows themselves need to be custom-fitted to each opening and won’t be appearing until September, said Farnsworth.

Inside the Commons it’s more of the same — a buzzing beehive of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and wall construction. But there was one beginning of note. “We started doing the framing for the ceiling over the main dining hall,” Farnsworth reported. “That’s significant because we have those four sloped sides that have to come together in a nice point. There was a fair amount of surveying before they could get to the framing.”

The east entrance to Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Alumni Walk: Somehow or other, things tend to balance out. While July 30 is the day Central Avenue is being closed for a week, around that same time the west end of Alumni Walk should be opened up for campus use.

That will be especially welcome considering the way the access routes across the 2.5-acre work site have been shifting around in recent weeks, like the staircases at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts.

Work soon to be done includes the swapping-out of an old telephone pole where Alumni Walk meets College Street. Also at this entrance, granite pavers will create two smooth, and therefore handicapped-accessible, paths through the apron of rough cobblestones already in place.

The bulk of Alumni Walk paving, though, takes the form of cut and polished asphalt-and-aggregate blocks that will run east, in parallel paths, to the new Commons. As of July 12, masons had laid 380 feet of pavers on the 20-foot-wide path, and it was hoped that the 10-foot path would extend that far by the week of the 16th.

Conspicuous on the walk in recent weeks are concrete rectangles at the building entrances as far east as Dana and Lane halls. Those rectangles will be bordered with granite and filled in with the asphalt pavers to embellish each entrance.

Birches and fences on Alumni Walk. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Finally on the Alumni Walk agenda, Margo Knight, director of advancement research at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, sent a query on July 10. “Right now, sitting in my office on the ground floor of Lane Hall, it sounds (and feels) like Godzilla and Mothra are taking a stroll down Alumni Walk,” Knight wrote on July 10, no doubt speaking for many of her Lane colleagues. “What are the crews doing to make that happen?”

Needing to lower a retaining wall at the east end of Lane, the crews used an excavator to chip offÌýthe concrete. “They chose to bang away at it,” Farnsworth said, indicating that different choices would be made if the situation should arise again. “It was a one-time event.”

New student housing: With occupancy set to startÌýnext month, general contractor H.E. Callahan of Auburn and its “subs,” or subcontractors, are concentrating on making the new residence inhabitable. In other words, said project manager Pam Wichroski, taking a back seat are tasks like landscaping and even some jobs in sections of the building that don’t affect livability.

Site work at the student residence. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

In fact, as Wichroski explained, completing a project like this is not like throwing a switch. Instead, it’s incremental. “It’s kind of a gray area, a transitional period. We call it ‘substantial completion,’ ” Wichroski said.

Though ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ will receive the keys to the building and students will move in around the middle of August, work will continue thereafter. And the repair of minor problems covered by warranty could go on for months. Likewise, the formal commissioning process that ensures the proper functioning of technical systems won’t end with occupancy.

Hot water for washing, for instance, comes from a “dual fuel” system that can’t be tested all at once. In warm weather, the boilers are gas-fired and that can be checked when all the parts are in place. But in the cold months, steam from the campuswide system will heat the boilers, so that can’t be tested until sometime this fall.

As for recent progress, there’s been plenty. Inside the three-section building, Wichroski reported, the College and the contractor made their “punch list” — that is, “items they need to complete before we take it over,” she explained — for the interior of the eastern wing.

There’s still work left to do inside that wing, also known as a “flanker,” but the punch-list phase signifies that the end is in sight. The west flanker’s punch list will be done around the end of the month, Wichroski added.

Meanwhile, site work continues. The barbecue, composed of a brick counter with an opening for a gas grill, is in place in the courtyard outside the fireplace lounge. Paving continues in the courtyard and under the breezeways, aka “bridges,” that connect the building’s center section with its wings.

Old Rand and the new housing, with the Chapel in the background. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

On that center section, semi-circular metal louvers to cover air intakes finally arrived and were installed the weekend of July 14. That clears the way for siding to be completed.

The lengthy roofing process is also near the end, as the east dormers are finally receiving their gray copper topping and the last few bare patches on the flat expanses are being covered.

Otherwise on the exterior, it’s mostly a matter of detail work, Wichroski said — caulking, flashing and installing trim around windows and other features.

On July 16, Campus Construction Update watched as workers started fitting a bit of gingerbread onto the porch roof at the residence director’s quarters, in the center section. Facing north, across Mountain Avenue toward Libbey Forum, the porch will express a vague traditional New England style.

Decidedly not traditional, though, is the substance of the columns, end caps and other ornaments: Fiberglas-reinforced polyester. Set up a couple of carbon-fiber rocking chairs, pour some Red Bull and plug in the iPod, and it’ll be like a cover from Yankee magazine.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

Steadying an end cap for the porch roof at 280 College. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Wizards of oxide: Workers finish the gray-oxidized roofing on the west side of the new student housing. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The new student housing at 280 College St. should be ready for occupancy in August, right on schedule, said Suzanne Grant, clerk of the works for the project. But there’s still a ways to go before students can start hanging their whiteboards and Gene Pitney posters.

Engineers from Harriman Associates, the architectural firm commissioning the building for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, will be testing various systems for much of July. Site work has begun with brick walkways, granite curbing and other hardscaping, but plantings and other finishing touches haven’t been started.

Like louvers do: This semi-circular hole in the center-section gable at 280 College Street will accommodate a ventilation louver. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

On the three-part structure itself, the painstaking installation of the gray-oxidized copper roofing on the dormers is coming along. The west-wing dormers should be done by July 4 (a date that makes some weird kind of sense when youÌýconsider that Revere Copper Products calls this particular roofing material “FreedomGray.”) Dormer roofing on the east wing started July 2.

Meanwhile, most of the metal panels covering the flat sections of roof are in place. The exception is the south face of the center section, which will be done after the completion of a small rooflike structure behind the chimney that helps keep water out — in builders’ jargon, a “cricket” (although it’sÌýthree storiesÌýabove the hearth in the building’s fireplace lounge).

The window wall in the fireplace lounge, aka Frank’s Lounge, at 280 College Street. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The brick wall veneer on the wings, aka “flankers,” is essentially done. Likewise the composite siding on the center, except for two sections on the gables that are awaiting the installation, probably by mid-month, of air-intake louvers. The siding also needs to be painted white, a chore that has been started on the south side.

The last of the windows, constituting a glass wall on the fireplace lounge, are being completed now, said Grant. “We’re still working on interior finishes,” she added, estimating that the east flanker is about 75 percent complete and the west, 65 percent. There’s more to do inside the center section, and that work is proceeding from the third floor downward, since the student rooms on that floor must be readied for occupants.

New paving marks paths that criss-cross Alumni Walk in this view facing west. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Finally, Grant reported, an important project originally planned for the second week of June was delayed. The long speed table crossing busy College Street and linking the student housing with Alumni Walk needs to be built this month for sure, she said. “The work is critical for the new housing since it provides safe access to the campus.”

Alumni Walk: We’ll save the champagne for another few months, but the construction of this cross-campus connector quietly passed a milestone in June. (Actually a second milestone, the first being the start of tree planting.)

Masons setting cobblestones at the Alumni Walk entrance. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Late in the month, the project’s first permanent walkway was put into service, running north-south between the Lake Andrews parking lot at Pettigrew and the historic Quad at Hathorn Hall (see a campus map). Though it needed a second layer of asphalt as this was written, the path became functional “just in time for the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dance Festival,” noted project manager Paul Farnsworth.

This path, currently marked “Andrews Road Crossing,” also provides a good vantage point for assessing the progress of Alumni Walk. (The walk’s entrance at College Street gives a useful view, too, especially of the masonry work, but watch out for traffic.) And, while there’s still plenty of bare earth and machinery, the west end of Alumni Walk affords a fair idea of how the finished product will look.

Pavers and new birch trees on Alumni Walk. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

For instance, this section of the site has been graded, and strolling up the new walkway between Hathorn and Parker illustrates how dramatically the landform is being altered. Among other benefits, the new grades will improve access for people with mobility issues — access to both the walk itself and buildings facing the walk, whose main entrances will now be flush with ground level.

Of 180 or so paper birches that will eventually shade this entire 2.5-acre area, 40 were planted in June and another 40 should have their toes in the dirt by July 6.

Most strikingly, the College Street entrance, the west ends of the two main travel lanes and several crosswise paths have received some degree of paving. Since mid-June, masons have been laying rough blue-gray cobblestones at the entrance. Soon they’ll start paving the ends of the east-west travel lanes with smooth granite, another accessibility measure.

A short distance in, a test patch has been laid of the asphalt blocks that will pave most of the walkways and the building entrances. The pavers, made by Hanover Architectural Products of Pennsylvania, have an attractive finish that elevates them above their humble petrochemical origins. “You wouldn’t know it’s asphalt,” said project manager Paul Farnsworth.

Bricks and contrasting granite on the new Commons’ south wall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

All these elements, plus a bit of imagination, add up to a pretty good picture of a site that will become a vital new crossroads for the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ campus.

New dining Commons: The exteriors of the Commons and the new student housing show an interesting contrast. Sasaki Associates, the Commons architects, elected to complement the basic brick walls with dark gray stone, as in slate on the roof and granite trim on the walls. String courses of blackened bricks in the walls echo the theme.

A steam-line trench at Dana Chemistry Hall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

At the new student housing, at the opposite end of campus, architects at Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott have taken the opposite approach. The facility offsets the brick of its two wings with string courses of pale bricks and with white siding on the center section.

How or whether Alumni Walk, which connects the new facilities but was designed by Sasaki, mediates between the two color schemes is another question — and Campus Construction Update will buy a cup of new dining Commons coffee for the correspondent with the most enlightening answer.

But we digress. The slate on the north Commons roof is complete, Farnsworth reported, and roofers have moved to the west. Having essentially finished the brick and granite on the east and south walls, masons have headed around the corner to the north wall.

The creation of the interior, a process of mind-bending complexity, is proceeding in leaps and bounds. Much of the systems roughing-in — electrical, plumbing, etc. — is done, and kitchen infrastructure is showing up. Last week, for instance, a truckload of ventilation equipment arrived last week from Cote Crane & Rigging in Auburn, where contractor Consigli Construction and its subcontractors store materials.

This view eastward, toward the new Commons, depicts a busy morning on Alumni Walk. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“Cote just trucks them over the day we need them,” Farnsworth explained. “It makes coordination a lot easier.”

This week, Farnsworth noted, the pizza oven will arrive, in three pieces, and components for the freezers and coolers are also expected. These units come in the form of insulated metal panels that are assembled like kits.

Downstairs, he added, “the big rush is to get the walls up so we can start to do interior finishes.” Workers are hanging drywall, and have started installing the ceiling support grid in the kitchen and servery areas.

Notes from underground: Farnsworth noted that an excavation for work to link the new and old drainage systems will close Pettengill’s front entrance from Tuesday, July 3, through Thursday, July 5. The building will be accessible through the rear doors — including, on Tuesday and Thursday only, the doors facing Smith Hall. Thereafter, he predicted, there will be only one more excavation for drainage work.

Elsewhere on the utilities front, devotees of Bobcats baseball will want to direct their thoughts elsewhere this week as trench diggers layÌýopen Leahy Field. As part of an ongoing upgrade of the campus steam-heat system, a new steam vault (No. 5, if you’re keeping track) was planted in the field, adjacent to Central Avenue, in mid-June. The trenches are for pipes linking the vault with the campus steam plant, at Cutten Maintenance Center, and with John Bertram Hall.

The new steam connection to Alumni Gym was delayed by a fitting damaged in transit, but work resumed this week. Pipes connecting the big vault in front of Pettengill Hall (Vault No. 1) with Dana Chemistry and Hathorn halls should be laid in the near future. And the big trench hooking Vault 1 to the vault near the new Commons, No. 2, was closed in late June after a successful test of the lines.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

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Blooms and rooms: Spring blossoms frame the student housing. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Engineers last week began the process of testing electrical, mechanical and other systems in the new student housing. The tests, which will continue until the College takes over the building sometime in July, are part of the building’s commissioning — a process of ensuring that everything works and looks as it should.

Testing began with fire dampers, the barriers inside ventilation ducts that swing shut if electronic sensors detect smoke.

Cementitious siding on the center section of 280 College St. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“Not only do you test to make sure the damper works appropriately,” said project manager Pam Wichroski, “but you make sure you have appropriate access to it. A lot of times if you don’t commission a building, they’ll put them in, then drywall over and forget about it. And down the road, if the damper gets activated, then you’re cutting drywall to reopen it.”

Commissioning new structures isn’t routine, Wichroski noted. Where architects and engineers used to doÌýthe kind of verification that is now part of the commissioning process, now “they go to the site just enough to watch and make sure the project is generally being built to the plans and specs. They don’t look at all that detail.”

Students on a tour of the new housing catch the view from a bridge. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Wichroski added, “This is the first building on the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ campus that will have been commissioned.”

Speaking of critical systems, the all-important task of hanging toilets has proceeded from the first to the second levels of the wings, aka “flankers.” Those areas are painted and tiled, too, and “we’re up in the third floors of both flankers, painting,” Wichroski said. “We’ll start doing some flooring in the student rooms this week as well.”

In the building’s center core, she noted, the elevator is up (and down) and running. Speaking of ups and downs, all of the staircases are done.

The number of workers at the housing site peaked in May at 90 or more. The building’s exterior treatments are far enough along that it’s no stretch to envision the finished product. “I would think by the end of May we ought to be pretty cleaned up and most of the outside work looking pretty complete,” agreed Wichroski.

A patchwork of exterior wall materials, including the granite trim, on the new Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Most of the bricklaying on the building’s two wings should be done this week. This week, too, workers started hanging the center core’s siding, a pale gray clapboarding made from a fiber-cement composite that’s an up-and-coming thing in building circles.

Meanwhile, installation of the window-walls for the student living rooms should be done by Commencement. The glass walls of the fireplace lounge, facing a patio complete with its own gas barbecue grill, should be installed within the month.

And roofing continues, with gray metal sheets going onto the flat expanses and, starting May 21, a gray copper product onto the sawtoothed dormers. Hand-fitting the latter is slow and tedious, Wichroski said.

New dining Commons: With occupancy still more than half a year away, the Commons construction is in a phase of intense activity but producing little news, reported project manager Paul Farnsworth.

Work begins on the Commons’ brick veneer on May 24, 2007. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

In something of a milestone, the Commons’ first stairway is now in use at the east end of the building, supplanting the ladders that workers had used for months to get to the second floor.

A forest of silvery steel wall studs has grown up in the kitchen and servery areas. Drywall work has begun with the protracted and fiddly process of fitting filler pieces into the flutes of the corrugated steel ceiling decks. Meanwhile, the roughing-in of electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems continues apace.

There were two other milestones on the exterior. Workers this week began laying slate, the finish layer of the roof, at the northeast corner of the building.

At the same time, bricklayers began their work, starting with the eastern wall near the loading dock. The slate is a deep charcoal gray, as is the granite trim at the base of the exterior walls. Dark gray bricks mixed in with the red ones will pull the visual aesthetic together.

Alumni Walk: Digging has begun for the Walk’s College Street entrance, which will take the form of stone pavement underlain by concrete. Otherwise, much of the work remaining at the Walk’s west end is grading and landscaping.

Slate on the new Commons roof. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Heading east, all the new retaining walls lining the regraded slopes from the historic Quad to the Walk will be complete by the week’s end. And in front of Pettengill, workers began the excavation for a major utilities project on May 23.

It was no surprise when they immediately ran into disused electrical cables pre-dating Pettengill.

This part of campus, Farnsworth explained, is riddled with active and abandoned utilities. So the plan for this dig is to keep the hole’s surface opening as small as possible by making the walls vertical, braced with steel piles and wood, instead of sloped. Hence the piledriving boom crane parked in front of Pettengill this week.

Farnsworth predicted another week of digging before workers started to place drainage, electrical and telecommunications lines, and a major steam junction connecting several buildings.

You’ll drop your meal trays off here. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Steam is the theme, in fact, for much of what’s happening underground, as the College renews or relocates existing lines.

Next week, a steam vault will be planted in Leahey Field, at the edge near Central Ave. When this vault — basically a large concrete box that accommodates valves and junctions for the campus-wide steam-heating system — and its mate on the Commons side of the avenue are in place, the road will be dug up and they will be linked.

Before Reunion (June 8–10), a new steam line will be connected to Alumni Gym, with the work taking place in the parking lot adjacent to Central Avenue. In addition, an existing steam line to Roger Bill will soon undergo asbestos abatement and removal, with a new connection to follow later. The line to Dana Chem will be abated and a replacement laid in June.

“It’s generally the case with institutional construction that you have to do a lot of things to do one thing,” Farnsworth noted. But it works the other way, too: Complicated and expansive projects like the student housing, Commons and Alumni Walk can provide opportunities to check off longstanding needs.

Starting a major utilities project at Pettengill. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“Hopefully we won’t have to do these again for a long time,” said Farnsworth, referring to all the new utilities going in under the Walk.

Can We Talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our Back Pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of other updates here.

For a bird’s-eye view of the locations for the new student housing and dining Commons, plug these coordinates into or (for the latter, click “Satellite” or “Hybrid”):

New Student Housing: 44 06 25.65 N, 70 12 23.67 W

New Dining Commons: 44 06 19.83 N, 70 12 06.93 W

Dusty old dust: Heavy equipment raises clouds on campus. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Like tea leaves, some parts of the built environment can offer clues about the future, if you know how to read them. The bases for light poles, for instance.

On the new Alumni Walk, the east-west pedestrian connector supplanting Andrews Road, six out of 14 of these concrete cylinders have been planted in the dirt. They won’t tell you much about your own future, but you can divine a bit from them about Alumni Walk.

For starters, the bases’ placement indicates where the Walk’s two parallel paths will go, because the lights will be sited between the lanes. (Along with the light bulbs, several thousand bulbs of the little blue spring flower called scilla will brighten this corridor.)

The ground stripped bare by Pettigrew and Lane halls. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

In addition, you’ll notice that some of the bases seem to stick up too high. As project manager Paul Farnsworth pointed out, the amount of base showing above the current ground level illustrates where the final ground level will be. The site will be regraded so that the Walk and the building entrances facing it will be at the same level, eliminating the need for stairs. So the ground will rise slightly at Pettigrew and Lane halls.

The mezzanine in the new Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

In fact, Alumni Walk work these days is all about the ground. Workers dig in it, planting telecom conduits and retaining walls. They push it around, regrading the slopes that lead between buildings up to the Historic Quad. They have exposed it, removing turf and asphalt from the College Street end nearly to Pettengill.

The naked dirt, which melts into muck in the rain and bakes in the sun, isn’t pretty. During windy days last week, dust peeled off the site in clouds, despite regular spray-downs from a water truck. At least, Farnsworth said, the gusts were mostly from the west and carried the dust toward the new Commons site. It’s so dusty there that a bit more is hardly noticeable.

The future pizza station. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Anyway, the dirt is part of an omelette-and-breaking-eggs kind of deal. Relief is in site. Farnsworth noted that the trees for the Walk — nearly 180 paper birches — have been selected and tagged at a nursery in Canada. In another month or so, he added, the western end of the Walk will be done enough to show the shape of things to come.

“Once we stripped off the road, that space seemed to get wider,” said Farnsworth. “I think Alumni Walk is going to be quite grand, especially through one of the large windows of the dining hall, which looks straight down the walk.”

A view from the kitchen roof. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

New dining Commons: Campus Construction Update got a chance to appreciate that view on April 24 during a tour of the building with Farnsworth. But the day’s featured attraction was concrete.

As we watched, workers finished pouring the slab for the second floor. The process is complex and fast-moving. One worker guided the massive hose, connected to a pumper truck, that dispenses the stuff. Others pushed the concrete with exaggerated trowels called floats to level it and evenly distribute the aggregate — the gravel and sand that form the bulk of concrete — throughout the mix.

Farnsworth also proudly described some of the innovations planned for the building: e.g., a new high-capacity tray-handling machine, an upstairs meeting room whose sound system will make all voices audible, a “flex dining” area configured with movable glass walls.

But all that’s seven months away. The placement of steel wall studs continues
around the exterior, Farnsworth said. Some of the big gaps indicate where windows will be — lots of glass. Other gaps await the application of fireproofing on the structural steel.

The real and envisioned student housing. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

On the south wall of the exterior, facing Alumni Gym, masons are installing the black granite that forms the lowest course of the finish wall. Similarly sober is the black spray-on vapor barrier covering bright yellow insulating panels.

The roof over the kitchen and servery is all but finished this week. Its outer layer is a quarter-inch rubber membrane, colored white to reflect heat. Elsewhere up on the roof, it’s just sandwich-building, layering various panels and membranes on top of the shiny steel decking.

Student living rooms. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Inside, the floor-pouring ended May 7 with the main dining area. Wall framing is moving apace, with the kitchen complete and workers spreading out into other areas. Also on track is the roughing-in of mechanical, HVAC, electrical and other systems.

Farnsworth explained that contractors use “coordination drawings” to plan the order of this work. Architect Sasaki Associates provides a floorplan, “everyone overlays their stuff on it, and it passes through all the pertinent trades,” he said. “The mechanic looks at it, the plumber looks at it, the sprinkler guy looks at it, the electrical.”

Sometimes it takes some adjustment to the design to fix a conflict, but “most things get resolved by people looking at it — ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ ”

Certain systems take priority. Sprinklers and lights, for example, have to go where they have to go, and the remaining installations go inÌýaround them. “These contractors and subcontractors have been through this many, many times,” he said. “It’s a very cooperative effort.”

Bricklayers. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The Things You Learn Dept.: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was fortunate, Farnworth said, that pavers were able to put a base coat on the Library Quad service road, neatening it up in time for the Trustee meetings May 11–12. He explained that the asphalt plants only reopened for the season on May 7, mere days before the meeting.

Taking contrarian pride in our beaten but unbowed blacktop driveway at home, we hadn’t been aware that asphalt plants closed for the season. In fact, in Maine it’s too cold to produce asphalt in the winter, Farnsworth said. “Typically they close around Thanksgiving and open up when the weather allows in the spring.”

New student housing: The new student housing hasn’t even opened for business yet, and overcrowding is already a problem.

Not an unusual problem. What’s happening, says project manager Pam Wichroski, is that the subcontractors working on the exterior — masons, roofers, etc. — all need to work in the same confined space. So it takes some choreography to make this ballet happen.

Apparently the spirit of George Balanchine is lurking in there somewhere. The final layer of roofing, a medium-gray metal, has started to appear on the west wing. (In ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ parlance, the wings are “flankers.”) The brick façade on the west flanker of the three-part structure is all but done, and masons have erected staging to start the last phase of bricklaying on the east wing.

Also visible from the street is the progress on windows, notably the room-height glass walls of the student living rooms at the corners of the wings. Overall, project architect Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott has been generous with glass. With most of the windows now in place, “it’s just amazing being in that space with the amount of sunlight that comes in,” says Wichroski.

Looking ahead, Wichroski reported that a representative of Auburn architectural firm Harriman Associates, no stranger to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ building projects, has been around. Harriman has been engaged as the commissioning agent for the new student housing, the party that ensures that the building will be ready to go when ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ gets the keys.

“He’s issued a schedule for all of the subcontractors so they know what pieces of equipment we’ll be testing when,” she said. “The real testing is intended to start on the 21st.”

Wichroski led a group of students and staff through the building on May 9, and we’ll show you some images from that tour when Update appears again, on May 24.

Can We Talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our Back Pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week into June 2007, during which month we hope to resume weekly publication. See an index of earlier Campus Construction Updates here.

For a bird’s-eye view of the locations for the new student housing and dining Commons, plug these coordinates into or (for the latter, click “Satellite” or “Hybrid”):

New Student Housing: 44 06 25.65 N, 70 12 23.67 W

New Dining Commons: 44 06 19.83 N, 70 12 06.93 W

How suite it is: Students examine floor plans for the new student housing. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The first students with the option to actually occupy ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ new student housing are making that choice now.

With less than six months to go before the residence next to Mount David opens, it’s housing lottery time again, and floor plansÌýfor the facility have been posted in Chase Hall along withÌýthe other housing. A “low-chem” house (meaning common-source alcohol and blueslipped parties with alcohol are banned), the residence will house 152 students from all four classes. (Click the links to see floor plans for the ; ; ; and levels.)

Steps for readyingÌýthe house for residents are being planned now, explained Pam Wichroski, project manager. “Usually students start to arrive in mid-August, and our goal is to have the building ready when the first students arrive,” she said.

After the project contractor, H.E. Callahan of Auburn, has finished final tweaks, the building will be thoroughly cleaned and furniture moved in. And, Wichroski noted, household supplies such as soap and paper towels are being ordered now.

Speaking of furniture, the contract for the dorm-room items went to a company new to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, DCI Furniture of Lisbon, N.H. Common-space furnishings will go out to bid next week.

Meanwhile, floor plans for two memory-haunted halls were not posted at the student housing office. Hedge and Roger Williams halls (the latter notorious for its “high-chem” culture in the 1980s and ’90s) will be closed by fall, Wichroski said, and likely won’t house students again.

“The plan right now is that they will be fully renovated for administrative or academic uses,” she said. “We’re in the early stages of talking about what goes into those spaces. And we’ll probably be into construction there within the next year.”

Pallets of drywall occupy the future quad. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

As far as the new housing’s construction goes, Wichroski noted that the building was essentially weather-tight for the March 2 storm that dropped snow and rain on Lewiston. In fact,Ìýdrywall hangingÌýand other interior work continued through the storm.

New Commons: Two months ago,Ìýwe rhapsodized about the changing feel of College Street as the housing project assumed something
like its final mass and shape.

The new Commons is creating a similar transformation between Alumni Gym and Pettengill. As structural steel outlines the long, high sloped roof over the main dining area, it’s easier and easier to grasp the effect such a large building will have. What was once a place that you passed on your way to somewhere interesting is developing its own kind of gravitational pull, even 10 months before it opens.

Well, enough rhapsodizing.

Time on this job is running out for the big old Link-Belt crane that’s been hoisting all that steel. The framework of the main dining area should be done by the end of March, reported project manager Paul Farnsworth. Once roof supports over the fireplace lounge are in place, the Link-Belt will move on.

“As soon as they’re done with that dining-area steel, you’re going to see a whole lot more of the roof decking go up,” Farnsworth noted. “You’ll actually see the roofline.”

The ridgeline of the dining room roof will slope toward Alumni Gym. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Within the plastic tent enclosing the future kitchen and servery areas, ground has been defrosted down toÌýfour or five feet and utility trenches are being dug. Workers used space heaters on the inside of the plastic-wrapped area, but also applied heat directly to the soil with a big red machine that pumps heated glycol — antifreeze — through tubes laid on the ground and covered with mats.

Stormwater drains will be laid first and deepest, then lines for water supply and building drainage, and finally the wiring. That work should be done and the floor slab begun in this section by early April, said Farnsworth.

Wall framing, too, is going up fast, with steel studs appearing on three sides of the Commons. Farnsworth noted that the mixture of brick colors for the exterior is being finalized; the bricks will come from the venerable Morin Brick Company of Auburn. Founded in 1912, Morin has served such educational clients as Colby, Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Harvard and Columbia, as well as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

When the mockup wall described last week goes up, you’ll be able to seeÌýwhat that brick mix will look like. (We’ll post a photo.)

The east entrance to the new Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Notes from Underground: The service road from Campus Avenue to the new Commons had a busy couple of weeks. By March 7, workers finished the new sewage and storm runoff lines and installed the Vortechnics stormwater handler that we mentioned last week.

In the near future, Farnsworth said, a patch of lawn near Alumni Gym will be dug up so that the Alumni-Gray-Muskie complex can be switched over from the old root-clogged clay pipe to the new drains.

“They just have to coordinate that for when there’s not heavy use of the buildings,” he laughed.

For More Information: If you’re on campus, a new display of texts and graphics in Ladd Library offers a wealth ofÌýinformation about these construction projects.

Can We Talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our Back Pages: See an index of Campus Construction Updates here.

For a bird’s-eye view of the locations for the new student housing and dining Commons, plug these coordinates into or (for the latter, click “Satellite” or “Hybrid”):

New Student Housing: 44 06 25.65 N, 70 12 23.67 W

New Dining Commons: 44 06 19.83 N, 70 12 06.93 W

Look, skywalker: On the skeleton of the new dining Commons, a worker unhooks a newly set piece of steel from the crane. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Considering how much trouble a Maine winter can cause when it really wants to, the people handling ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ major campus-improvement projects have gotten off easy so far. Snow has been minimal, and only during the past couple of weeks have temperatures dropped to something like normal.

Lucky weather, top-notch planning and good contractors have kept the new student housing and dining Commons-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Walk projects on schedule.

The contractors supply their own heat. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Still, no one’s taking good weather for granted. According to project manager Pam Wichroski, top priority on the housing work now is making that three-section building next to Mount David weathertight by the end of February.

“We’re trying to step up the pace,” she said, which among other measures has meant weekend work for the builders. “In case there is snow, we don’t want it to delay us.”

“Weathertightness” entails getting roofs in place and windows covered with polyethylene sheets, objectives well under way. Installation of roof panels is well along on the eastern wing, aka “flanker,” with the western close behind. Supports for the center section’s roof are going up now.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has the contractors provide their own electricity and heat, Wichroski noted. “It’s all in their name until they turn the building over to us,” she explained — even though the steam line from the central heating plant is alive in the new housing, pushing steam through to adjacent Rand Hall.

That promotes energy consciousness among the builders. Since they’re footing the bills, Wichroski said,Ìý“they try to make sure that everything’s tight and the windows are poly’d off to contain the heat.” It’s not an uncommon arrangement, she added, but neither is it standard.

Dining Commons: As for the dining facility, due to open around this time next year, “we put an aggressive schedule on the contractors,” Consigli Construction Co. of Milford, Mass., said project manager Paul Farnsworth.

The recent cold hasn’t made much difference to the pace of progress, Farnsworth explained. The arctic air arrived at a good point: The current focus isÌýthe completion of the building’s steel frame, and no major concrete or masonry work is happening. Concrete and mortar need warmth for their strengthening chemical reactions to take place, necessitating the use of heaters and wrappings. But steel just doesn’t care, although the steelworkers might.

Farnsworth reported that three more truckloads of steel for the building’s framework arrived on Jan. 26, at least a week earlier than previously announced. It’sÌýbound for the southeast corner, next to Alumni Gym, where the open kitchen and servery areas will be situated in the finished Commons.

Placement of roof panels on the west wing of the new student housing is nearly done. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Notes from Underground: If you have strolled by the Commons site lately, you couldn’t miss a new hole in the ground that’s big enough to play tennis in. This, said Farnsworth, is where all the runoff from the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Walk will drain before its next stop, Lake Andrews. The arrangement keeps stormwater out of the public sewer system.

Plastic cells, resembling a honeycomb, buried in the pit will detain the runoff so that it can drop sediments and then flow into the pond at a measured rate — “so that you don’t get a huge slug of water during a storm.”

Why is the pit so big? “It’s large and deep because obviously we have to drain all the way from the other end of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Walk,” at College Street. (See a campus map.) “So there’s a slope to the pipe.”

Talk to Us: What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you — please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Views with a room: With a flatscreen video wall behind her, Jacqueline Smith ’07 studies in the new Imaging Center. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Now open in a sleekly renovated section of Coram Library is ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College’s Imaging and Computing Center.

Under construction since July 2006, the centerÌýenhances ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ ability to teach visual presentation and interpretive skills that are nowadays as much the scientist’s preserve as the artist’s. Occupying Coram’s first floor, the center assembles high-tech gear — from optical microscopes to large-format printers to 20 powerful black-cased Dells in a computing lab — that enables students and faculty to capture, interpret and present in visual form all manner of information.

Because visual representations can include everything from digital art photos to genomic data, the center is seen, too, as an expression of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ dedication to teaching and learning across subject boundaries. “It’s a highly interdisciplinary, freewheeling environment,” says director Matt Côté, associate professor of chemistry.

The décor was designed to encourage hanging around and sharing ideas. Wall colors veer toward the bold, two Saeco vending machines offer espresso, chai and other benign stimulants, and the comfy lounge area is equipped for wireless network access. Three 46-inch Samsung flatscreens in the lounge show student and faculty work, and the facility is wired so that happenings in the imaging lab can be shared throughout the center.

For more information, call 207-753-6945 or e-mail center manager Mathieu Duvall.

A view of the new Commons with Pettengill in the background. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Dining Commons: Last Thursday, Paul Farnsworth left his office in Cutten Maintenance Center and headed toward the center of campus. On his way, he couldn’t miss the steel framework that, the day before, workers had begun for the new dining Commons.

“When I walked across the baseball field, I could see the building, and I thought, ‘Wow, that is going to be big,’ ” said Farnsworth, project manager for the Commons and related ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Walk projects. (See a campus map.)

Hoisting the steel beams into place is an 82-ton-capacity Link-Belt crane with a 180-foot combination jib and main boom, said Paul Burmeister, of the Maine steel fabricating firm Steel Guys. The rig, Burmeister said, won’t be pumping iron anywhere near its rated capacity, though. Most of the beams will weigh up to a ton and a half.

The steel frame works like “a giant Erector set,” added Farnsworth. “The pieces are precut and predrilled for bolting. The erectors just follow a numbered plan for assembly. The materials are even trucked in in a specific order.”

With the steel going up now for the Commons’ northeast corner, work on the southeast corner — future home to the Dining Services kitchen and “servery” area — starts next month. Then comes the northwest, in late February or early March, and the southwest in mid- to late March. Work on the exterior walls is expected to begin in April.

Wooden roof trusses being hoisted into place at 280 College St. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

New student housing: On Jan. 18, workers on the new student housing near Mount David began setting wooden roof trusses in place. The 130 trusses will support the inboard roof sections on the facility’s two “flankers,” or wings.

Curious about the tripartite nature of the new building, we asked project manager Pam Wichroski why architects Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott had designed a center core flanked by two, er, flankers.

“You need a fair amount of surface area on a building like this to maximize the daylight and exposure of student rooms to the outdoors,” she said. “It also helps with natural ventilation — we’re not trying to ventilate one large rectangle.”

In an arrangement strangely reminiscent of the original starship Enterprise, two midair breezeways called “bridges” will link the flankers and center section. These two-level bridges will connect the flankers’ and the core’s second and third floors.

The bridges will help bring spring breezes and daylight into the dorm, Wichroski said. Their walls will be glass — specifically, wood-framed awning windows. Informal gathering spaces will be situated at the flanker ends of both bridges, and the walkways themselves will be carpeted for social as well as aesthetic reasons.

Hanging steel for the new Commons. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“The student culture here is, they like to sit in the hallways or other common open spaces,” Wichroski said. “So we put carpet in so they could sit on the floor and treat it like a lot of other hallways in our dorms.”

Notes from underground: On the utilities front, work continues on a campuswide stormwater drainage system that reaches from the new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Walk clear across Central Avenue over to Merrill Gym and the maintenance center. At a site behind the gym, trees were cleared and the college’s compost storage dumps were removed to make way for excavation, under way now, to accommodate the drainage works.

Ultimately, says Farnsworth, a new parking lot will be placed behind the gym. The lot will restore all the parking to be lost as Andrews Road is transformed into the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Walk — plus a net gain of 20 much-needed spaces.