The demolition of �ֲ���ý’ former boathouse is part of this week’s Campus Construction Update.

Campus Construction Update isn’t ready to surrender the hard hat and safety vest quite yet, but that day is coming soon. (The 8-foot ladder stays here!)

Workers install the door unit at the new rear entrance to Wentworth Adams Hall on Aug. 10, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The four projects that we’ve been following since last spring (or, in the case of the Campus Life Project, since spring 2014) are all coming to fruition in the next few weeks — in time, naturally, for students’ arrival for the new academic year.

Two of the projects are athletic facilities. The new playing surface for the Campus Avenue Field, home of �ֲ���ý field hockey, should be in place by Aug. 19. And �ֲ���ý’ new boathouse, in Greene, is scheduled for completion by Sept. 2.

And two projects, involving four buildings in all, are residential. In one project, Smith and Wentworth Adams halls have been upgraded during the summer. The fourth, of course, is the brand-new �ֲ���ý dorms at 55 and 65 Campus Ave., which we looked at last week. Students will begin moving into all four buildings on Aug. 19.

The former Room 118 in Wentworth Adams Hall will soon be the vestibule for the dorm’s new rear entrance, offering quick access to Lake Andrews. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

At Wentworth Adams, the excitement has focused on the lowest two stories. Being created on the ground floor are an entrance facilitating access to Lake Andrews; and a large study area supporting that floor’s new function as a first-year center. One flight up, a residence director’s apartment is taking the place of a student room.

Meanwhile, Aug. 9 was the date scheduled for substantial completion of the Smith work, which was building-wide. Substantial completion meant, among other things, that �ֲ���ý folks could move freely in the building, giving project manager Paul Farnsworth and others 10 days to square things away before student occupancy.

Smith’s basement has been extensively reworked, including a reconfigured floor plan and new heating infrastructure. Above ground, a makeover of student living space addresses both deferred maintenance issues and a so-called de-densification that’s halving the number of beds to 96. The other 96 are shifting to the new Campus Avenue residences.

During an Aug. 2 tour of Smith with Farnsworth, things were hopping. Every building trade seemed to be represented, especially in the basement — carpenters, wallboard hangers, plumbers, HVAC technicians, security system technicians, tile installers, and electricians.

The new boiler, clad in a white metal cover, was commissioned Aug. 4, a daylong test that included firing up the unit and circulating hot water through the radiators. (The renovation included the relocation of certain hot-water pipes upward an entire floor, from the ceiling of the basement to the ceiling of the first floor. Moving the pipes allows more natural light into the basement.)

A different pipe job was also finished: extending the fire sprinkler pipes out to the middle of the student room ceilings. Formerly positioned near the walls, the sprinklers can now fully cover a room in the unlikely event of a fire.

Heating technicians near the near Smith Hall boiler on Aug. 2, 2016. The heating system passed its operational test two days later. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

And another new system, the makeup air unit and heat exchanger that will serve Smith’s basement, introduced us to (yet another) building concept we’d never considered: makeup air. Makeup air? The possibilities were thought-provoking, but the story is really about energy efficiency.

Exhaust fans like bathroom ventilators and the new range hood in Smith’s basement kitchen reduce air pressure in a building. This “negative pressure” pulls unconditioned outside air inside — not a good thing in colder months.

So the makeup unit equalizes the pressure and, in cold weather, transfers heat from the exhaust air to the incoming air.

Upstairs, painting of the hallways was in progress, with a few bedroom walls still to be done. Bedroom flooring was in place and corridor carpeting was being laid even as we passed through. Farnsworth pointed out that the flooring subcontractor, Paul G. White Interior Solutions, worked six-day weeks and brought in installers from out of state to keep the project on track.

Finally in Smith, renovation of the 12 student bathrooms was nearly complete, incorporating new floor tiles and sinks; water-saving low-flow shower heads; and, for the first time in Smith, overhead lights in the toilet and shower stalls.

Next door at Wentworth Adams, progress was most apparent on the new entrance, with the wall opening covered in plywood while awaiting the door unit’s arrival on the 10th. But the canopy roof over the entryway was finished and the area around it landscaped, with an eye toward enabling a backyard social milieu.

In the vestibule, benches will encourage waiting for a friend, or enjoying the view even during inhospitable weather. A gas grill is on order, and Farnsworth is thinking about laying on a few Adirondack chairs.

Encouraging students to hang out together, he said, “is what this is all about.”

The exterior wall coverings were in place on the front of �ֲ���ý’ new boathouse by late July 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A Boathouse Raised, Another Razed: Granted that this series is dedicated to construction and not the opposite, we were nevertheless transfixed by the destruction of �ֲ���ý’ former boathouse on July 28.

With its replacement going into service Sept. 1, time was up for the barn-like 1988 structure situated near the new facility on the Androscoggin River in Greene.

The �ֲ���ý rowing fleet was stored at Underhill Arena while the college was between boathouses in July 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Operating an excavator for Wayne, Maine, construction firm C.H. Stevenson, Walter Davenport was an artist at the controls of the John Deere 160D that knocked down the old house — or at least its wooden frame, since the wall planks had been removed previously for re-use in the new boathouse.

Davenport caressed the frame at each end of the building with the Deere’s metal claw. Then he softened up one side. Finally he drove around wiggling corner posts until the structure collapsed with a polite thump.

Rowing coach Peter Steenstra witnessed the razing. “I’m proud of what we did with so little,” he said, referring to shortcomings in the old boathouse that had emerged as the rowing program grew. “And now it’s amazing how so little can somehow seem like so much.”

Davenport and his Deere also put an end to a problem that cropped up at the start of the boathouse construction project, back in April: the discovery of rocks, really big rocks, that were in the way at the construction site.

Removing them intact would have been prohibitively expensive, says �ֲ���ý project manager Henry Gillert. Incorporating them into the landscaping proved to be unworkable. But finally, Gillert says, a jackhammer mounted on an excavator’s boom — a so-called hoe ram — was used to break up the rocks, which Davenport loaded into dump trucks for disposal on the 28th.

Walter Davenport and his Deere excavator load the broken-up remains of large rocks that had posed something of a problem on the site of �ֲ���ý’ new boathouse. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“They were really hard rocks, and we weren’t sure we were going to be able to do it,” says Gillert, “but they did it in one day. It was a huge win to be able to get rid of those at a reasonable cost.”

At any rate, the new boathouse itself is right on schedule. Combining gray shingles, garnet clapboards, and white trim, much of the exterior wall covering is in place. The windows are finished. This week, plumbers and electricians have been doing terminal installations, e.g., faucets and light switches, and tiling experts are on task in locker rooms and bathrooms.

Those wall planks from the old boathouse, freshly planed and finished, will be fitted as corridor wainscoting and ceiling accents starting next week. A key feature, the slick telescoping Focus Rack Systems boat racks, will arrive the week of the 22nd.

The TenCate Ecocept layer on the Campus Avenue Field on Aug. 8, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

All Mixed Up: Finally on the athletics front, replacement of the Campus Avenue Field playing surface has resumed after a delay related in part to equipment troubles.

The new turf, a highly regarded Dutch product called GreenFields TX, has two layers: a carpet of high-tech faux grass on top, and a shock-absorbent base that’s known generically as the elastic layer or e-layer, and in GreenFields parlance as the Ecocept layer, made by the Dutch firm TenCate.

It consists of recycled rubber crumbs and chipped-up plastic bottles that are mixed with polyurethane glue right on site just prior to placement.

A crew for NET Sports of Saco, Maine, places the GreenFields TX Ecocept layer on �ֲ���ý’ field hockey facility. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

That Ecocept layer was supposed to go down the third week of July. But the mixing machine that project contractor NET Sports Group of Saco, Maine, brought up from Texas was not performing to the satisfaction of the GreenFields supervisor on the scene. So NET bought a new mixer from Germany.

Because irregularities in the Ecocept are transmitted to the playing surface, Gillert explains, the quality of that layer is critical to the playability of the field. Indeed, the NET Sports crew is so meticulous about laying the stuff that watching them work is like watching paint dry.

“Our main objective is to get it in right, because we’re going to live with that field for 20 years,” Gillert says.

Thanks to the new mixer, the Ecocept was successfully placed this week and the grassy GreenFields carpet is scheduled to arrive Aug. 12.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, and future construction at �ֲ���ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “Makeup air? Is that like makeup … never mind” in the subject line. Or use the comments system below.

Topped with worn blue padding, the wooden boat racks were still in place in �ֲ���ý' 1988 boathouse on July 19, 2016, about a week before its scheduled demolition. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Carpenters for R.S. Egenstafer Construction of Littleton, Maine, dismantling the old �ֲ���ý boathouse on July 19, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The new �ֲ���ý boathouse seen through the wall framing of its 1988 predecessor. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The �ֲ���ý boathouse on July 19, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A padded cradle once used for storing �ֲ���ý racing shells lies discarded in the old boathouse. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

As �ֲ���ý’ new varsity rowing boathouse comes closer and closer to completion, the old boathouse comes closer and closer to vanishing. When we visited on July 19, the barn-like space was all but empty, with just a few wooden boat racks remaining and barely enough debris on the ground to catch our interest. The boats are stored on campus in Underhill Arena and the rowing teams’ other gear is stashed in a storage unit on the construction site.

Carpenters for R.S. Egenstafer Construction of Littleton, Maine, dismantling the old �ֲ���ý boathouse on July 19, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

The roof looked more or less intact, but the walls have been reduced to bare framing. The planks that once covered them have been sent to East Coast Millwork of Boothbay, Maine, for resurfacing and sizing, after which they’ll be re-used to finish walls inside the new boathouse.

It’s nice to know that something of the 1988 boathouse will live on in the 2016 edition.

And on July 28, what’s left of the old house “will just get knocked down, chopped up, and hauled away,” explains project manager Henry Gillert.

Uphill from the old boathouse and a bit further from the Androscoggin River sits the new boathouse. Thanks to Hahnel Brothers Co., of Lewiston, the roof was finished the second week of July. Hahnel put asphalt shingles on the boathouse proper and a heavy rubber-like membrane on the adjoining annex, which will contain lockers, showers, and the team room — all amenities the old house lacked.

The �ֲ���ý boathouse on July 19, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Most windows are in place on both sections, including clustered units on the team room that face east toward the river and pointy ones up near the gables that cast a dramatic light into the boat-storage space.

The plywood walls have been coated with Typar breathable weather-protection membrane. (It’s a building product that, like the similar Tyvek, is likely named for a prominent figure in the Vulcan High Command. “May your building envelope live long and enable you to prosper.”)

And with the Typar in place, carpenters for R.S. Egenstafer Construction, based in the Aroostook County town of Littleton, Maine, will sheath the building with stained wooden shingles and garnet-painted clapboards.

Inside the boathouse, the installation of wallboard and insulation is well underway, accompanied by mechanical-electrical rough-ins — that is, the running of infrastructure like pipes and wires into a space without making final hookups. The walls can be closed up when those rough-ins have had their municipal inspection.

Topped with worn blue padding, the wooden boat racks were still in place in �ֲ���ý’ 1988 boathouse on July 19, 2016, about a week before its scheduled demolition. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

All in all, Gillert says, “it’s really progressing very smoothly.”

Also in early July, a representative from the specialty boat-rack builder Focus Rack Systems of Nashville, Mich., visited to measure the boat storage space.

“That’s a very, very big deal,” says Gillert. Proper boat storage is a focus of concern for the rowing coach Peter Steenstra and his teams, as the lightly built vessels are quite vulnerable to damage. Dings that puncture a boat’s skin can admit moisture that will cause the hull to deteriorate.

The old racks were essentially padded pieces of wood mounted perpendicular to the boathouse walls. (There were also some padded hook-like boat cradles that hung from the ceiling on ropes. Steenstra has pointed out that the old house ended up storing three times as many boats as it was designed for.)

The Focus racks, instead, will have telescoping arms that function like drawers, making boat handling easier on both vessels and rowers. As one of the final stages of the boathouse construction, Focus will install the racks during the third week of August.

In other news from the Androscoggin’s shady banks, the project team has decided the fate of the boulders that surprised everyone when they turned up during foundation work. The big rocks will be broken up and hauled away.

The 1988 �ֲ���ý boathouse, at left, and the new facility, pictured on July 11, 2016. The Androscoggin River is behind the trees. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Turf’s up: The summer’s other major athletics construction project, the replacement of artificial turf at Campus Avenue Field, was on hiatus earlier this week.

Workers finished grading the stone base for the new state-of-of-art GreenFields TX turf in mid-July. But the placement of the shock-absorbing TenCate Ecocept layer, which will underlie the grassy-looking playing surface, was delayed until specialized equipment could be delivered here from a job in Texas.

That gear has arrived and work was expected to begin today, July 22.

A Crooker Construction excavator handles rolls of AstroTurf that have been removed from Campus Avenue Field. GreenFields TX will replace the 16-year-old AstroTurf. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Nevertheless, the renovation of the �ֲ���ý field hockey team’s home field is expected to be complete by Aug. 3.

Like a giant pizza cutter, the circular blade on this front-end loader is slicing the Campus Avenue Field AstroTurf on July 6, 2016, prior to rolling it up for removal. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A team from Crooker Construction of Topsham, Maine, had cut up and removed the old AstroTurf at the Campus Avenue Field early in the month. �ֲ���ý was hoping to give reusable surface portions of the old turf, installed in 2000, to local schools, but none were reusable. The AstroTurf had been glued onto a shock-absorbing elastic layer, aka e-layer, of mixed asphalt, stone, and rubber, and that was some tough glue.

“Everything just came up as one solid piece,” says Gillert, whose project management portfolio includes the field hockey field as well as the boathouse.

Around the same time the AstroTurf was being peeled off Campus Avenue Field, AstroTurf LLC was filing for bankruptcy protection, in an action designed to protect an intended sale of the company. The firm was a pioneer in the field of artificial turf, and was also a bidder in the current project.

With some of the AstroTurf still in place on Campus Avenue Field, an excavator stacks rolls of the turf that have just been peeled off on July 6, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Talk about turf wars. The filing followed AstroTurf’s $30 million loss in a patent fight with the French company Tarkett. That company makes yet another turf for athletics: FieldTurf, which covers �ֲ���ý’ Garcelon Field as well as several NFL facilities.

Whatever happens next with AstroTurf the company, AstroTurf the product has left �ֲ���ý with its honor intact. “A lot of folks have said that we really got our money’s worth with that field,” Gillert notes.

He expects the same result from the GreenFields, made by a company based in the Netherlands. “It’s a great manufacturer with a great reputation,” he says. “Everybody’s really excited to see this new product come in.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, and future construction at �ֲ���ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “Do the Vulcans use artificial turf?” in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

In preparation for placing the �ֲ���ý boathouse foundation slab, an employee of construction firm C.H. Stevenson adjusts a plate compactor. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Although it didn’t affect the timetable, the construction of �ֲ���ý’ new boathouse got off to a rocky start — literally. “We unearthed about a dozen boulders” too big to haul away intact, says Henry Gillert, �ֲ���ý’ project manager for the boathouse.

With the old boathouse in the background, an excavator moves dirt at the foundation site of the new boathouse. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“That was kind of a surprise, because it’s just an open field. You wouldn’t expect to get boulders this huge,” he says. The rocks have been pushed to the side of the work site along the Androscoggin River in Greene, and will either be used in the landscaping or broken up for disposal.

The replacement of �ֲ���ý’ 1988 boathouse with a much larger, better-equipped facility is one of four projects on Campus Construction Update’s radar this summer. (Yep! Now we have radar!)

The others? The new Campus Avenue residences, the renovation of Smith and Wentworth Adams halls, and the replacement of the AstroTurf covering on the Campus Avenue Field.

Starting in June, with Gillert again serving as �ֲ���ý project manager, the venerable AstroTurf will be replaced with a state-of-the-art covering from the Georgia manufacturer GreenFields USA. That product, GreenFields TX, was the official playing surface for the 2014 World Cup in field hockey.

All four endeavors are slated for substantial completion by or during August.

The site of �ֲ���ý’ new boathouse is nearly ready for its foundation slab. The pinkish material is insulation. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Back on the banks of the Androscoggin, President Clayton Spencer presided over a groundbreaking for the new boathouse immediately after the Bobcats’ President’s Cup victories on April 17, and construction began the day after.

A new home for the highly ranked rowers is overdue. “We’re 70 athletes, and we operate out of a pole barn with a dirt floor and no electricity,” says rowing coach Peter Steenstra. “We don’t have changing rooms, showers, warm water, or anything.

“The quality of the program has exceeded that of the facility.”

In size, too, the rowing program has outstripped the current boathouse. Steenstra points out that nowadays the team stores three times as many boats on the old wooden racks as they were designed for. In addition, team equipment such as the coaches’ launches, the boat trailer, and the truck that hauls the trailer around all live outside — including during the Maine winter.

At around 7,200 square feet, more than triple the area of its predecessor, the new boathouse will be able to accommodate all those supporting vehicles and the 20-some-odd racing shells, with room to spare for increasing the fleet.

Bowled over by boulders: Discovered underground at the site of �ֲ���ý’ new boathouse, these rocks took the construction team by surprise. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“With this new boathouse, we’re able to stack boats very high,” the coach says. “So any boats we don’t use daily can be put up onto a top rack and kept safe for most of the year, and only brought down for spring season.”

Boat storage racks that roll in and out like drawers, Steenstra adds, will streamline boat handling and reduce incidental damage to the hulls.

In addition to boat storage, the building will enclose a workshop; a team room for gatherings; and locker rooms with more than 40 lockers per team, bathrooms, and showers.

And so the rowers may appreciate the new facility the most, Steenstra says, “on those rainy cold days when they’re not sitting outside or stretching outside in the rain, or deciding where to put their dry clothes to make sure they stay dry for after practice.”

He adds, “And not having to use porta-potties on a daily basis. That’s something that’s normal at regattas, but when it comes to daily use at the boathouse, it gets old.”

By May 12, when Campus Construction Update visited the construction site (handily finding it with our new radar), the plot had been cleared and graded, drainage installation was in progress, and foundation walls had been placed.

�ֲ���ý’ 1988 pole-barn-style boathouse awaits its fate. Drain pipes and stockpiled soil will be used for the construction of the new facility. At far left is Campus Construction Update’s radar-equipped van. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

We watched employees of subcontractor C.H. Stevenson, of Wayne, Maine, prepare the ground for a slab-on-grade concrete foundation — leveling and compressing soil, and topping it with a lavender-hued layer of insulating foam.

Comprising 100 yards or so of concrete, the slab was slated to be poured the day after our visit by J Mac’s Custom Concrete of Auburn.

The next big item on the schedule is the start of timber framing — a two-week process that will probably begin today, and is the responsibility of South County Post and Beam of Kingston, R.I.

In a nice touch, wood siding from the existing boathouse will be refinished and used on the interior walls. “It’s a little bit more work” — and expense — “but it does have advantages,” says Gillert. “We’re not throwing it away, and we’re incorporating some of the historic nature of the site. And wood when it ages has a different patina and color to it.”

Consigli Construction, lead contractor on the Campus Avenue residences, is also coxswain for the boathouse job. “They’ve got an aggressive schedule,” says Gillert. “They’ve done an exceptional job planning the Campus Avenue project, and they’re doing the same with the boathouse.”

Peterson Architects, a firm in Cambridge, Mass., that specializes in boathouses, designed the new facility. In terms of the exterior, “the idea behind the design is to fit into the surroundings, and it’s farm country there,” Streenstra says.

Site prep for the new boathouse. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

That consideration came from the rowers themselves — that is, the �ֲ���ý students who were on the team when the planning process began, several years ago.

Their biggest concern, says Steenstra, was that “they wanted it to maintain a barnlike appearance, to be rustic, to be humble — these were their words.” As good as the program is, “they don’t want it to be some giant showy building.

“For 30 years we’ve done quite well out of a barn,” so there’s no need to be ostentatious, he says. “The team was the first ones to be sensitive to that.”

The $2.5 million cost of the boathouse will be completely funded by donations from �ֲ���ý alumni and parents.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, and future construction at �ֲ���ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “Next year: Sonar!” in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

Video: excerpts from a piece by Project Manager Henry Gillert depicting boathouse construction.