At work on a foundation at 65 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

If you really want to know how well your Geopiers or GeoConcrete Columns have stabilized ground that you want to build on, here’s a good way to load-test the soil:

Equip a heavy-duty hydraulic jack with a computerized load-measurement device — may we suggest a linear strain conversion transducer? — and base the jack on the patch of soil you want to test. Then mount a really heavy-duty frame or platform atop the jack.

Foundation work in the basement of 65 Campus Ave., seen from the 8-foot ladder. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Finally, get your self-propelled drill rig back from the neighbor who borrowed it to sink his own GeoConcrete Columns and drive it onto the platform. Then check the computer to see how the soil responds to the weight.

All right, so there’s a little more to it than that.

But in February, Helical Drilling of Braintree, Massachusetts, did a lot of testing along those lines at the bottom of the hole that will hold the basement of the Campus Life Project’s 65 Campus Ave. construction site. The tests followed the implanting of 233 GeoConcrete Columns intended to bolster soil that will support the basement.

And the tests showed that the columns are doing the job.

That means that workers can start building that basement. And, with foundation work already well underway elsewhere on the 65 Campus Avenue site, as well as at 55 Campus Ave., the success of the GeoConcrete Columns means that the project management team can get the construction timetable for �ֲ���ý’ two newest student residences back on track.

Foundation work extends down into the basement pit at 65 Campus Ave. on March 2, 2015. The vertical rebar forms will be piers to support columns. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

That timetable was changed to adapt to the soil issues at 65 Campus. While the original plan was to concentrate on No. 65 till the foundations were done, the delay at the basement site prompted management to shift the foundation workers to 55 instead to keep them occupied and the work progressing.

But now foundation work on the basement is going full tilt — making amazing progress just this week. “They may end up working continuously on 55 Campus,” says Chris Streifel,  �ֲ���ý project manager for the residence construction, “but there may also be an interval here when they move back and focus purely on 65.”

“Then, once steel starts swinging, they’ll come back and finish foundations on 55.” That’s steel as in steel for the building’s skeleton, and we can watch for that in April.

The student residences planned for 55 and 65 will essentially sit on typical slab foundations. But “slab foundation” doesn’t quite capture the extent of the work involved, explains Streifel.

A wall foundation section sits on a spread footing at 65 Campus Ave. The black materials on the side of the concrete form are for moistureproofing. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

At the root of it all are in-ground concrete creations called spread footings, so named because they are wider than the elements they support and therefore spread the weight around. (As opposed to throwing weight around, as Campus Construction Update likes to do here in the �ֲ���ý Communications Office compound.)

Building walls rest on concrete sections that are in turn supported by spread footings. “You also have piers rising from footings where concentrated loads from columns will be placed,” Streifel says.

“So the wall sections will ultimately support the building walls, the piers will support loads typically associated with columns and the spread footings support it all.”

None of these footers, he adds, are small. For instance, some of the rebar skeletons for the column footers (rebar being the metal rods that help hold concrete together) are 10 by 10 feet.

Wall foundation sections for the new student residence at 65 Campus Ave. The red-and-black tarp-like things are blankets that help concrete cure in the cold. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Recently there have been about 30 workers on the project between Consigli Construction, supervising the project for �ֲ���ý, and subcontractors performing site and foundation work, according to Consigli project manager Tim Schneider. Occasionally a small crew from Standard Waterproofing of Waterville is on site as well, applying a variety of materials — all resembling black tarps — to seal against moisture and divert it from the concrete components.

So if you get your stepladder back from the neighbor who borrowed it, take it to either construction site, stand it in a snow bank and climb up to see over the fence — while playful March breezes tease your ears and fingers and put you in mind of Tahiti — you can see all these footers, piers and wall sections zigzagging in their wooden forms across the frozen earth, including the hole for the No. 65 basement.

You can also see the construction workers who have been on the site since December and probably stopped thinking about Tahiti around the 50th or 60th inch of snow.

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 “Tahiti! When?” in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

The Campus Life Project construction site photographed from a multicopter on Oct. 11, 2014, during Parents & Family Weekend. Campus Avenue runs across the base of the image, and Franklin Street goes up the middle. (H. Lincoln Benedict ’09 for �ֲ���ý College)

“There’s a lot under the streets,” says Chris Streifel. “You’d be surprised how much stuff is down there.” Stuff like gas lines, electrical and telecom conduits, and pipes for water, sewage and storm runoff.

And there’s going to be even more stuff down there starting Nov. 3, as utilities work for this phase of the Campus Life Project — two new residences on Campus Avenue — gets underway in earnest.

Street closure sites are indicated in red. Click on the image to see a larger map.

Coming after several weeks’ lull in the project, this new activity will affect side streets adjacent to campus in early November, says Streifel, who manages the project for the college.

The work touches three side streets: Nichols, Bardwell and Franklin. On each, the block connecting with Campus Avenue will be closed to all but local traffic. The dates may change, but here’s what we know right now:

Nichols and Franklin will be closed Nov. 3–8 or thereabouts. (Franklin may reopen Nov. 7.) And Bardwell will be closed Nov. 8-11.

It’s mostly about storm runoff, Streifel explains. Currently (so to speak), sewage and storm runoff hereabouts are carried away by a combined system. That’s undesirable because heavy storms can overwhelm the municipal sewage treatment plant.

For this construction project, the local systems will be separated. Runoff from the new residences will be treated on site through a variety of passive filtration systems — rain gardens being the most visible examples — and then flow into a separate municipal stormwater system.

At lower left, the pipes stacked in the Franklin Street parking lot will someday carry storm runoff away from the Campus Life Project residences. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

From the residences, the runoff will flow through a new drain connecting to existing pipes at Nichols Street. Part of that bigger drain was implanted between Nichols and Bardwell streets a few years ago. In November, workers will extend it across Bardwell and over to Franklin.

As the weeks go by, we’ll be announcing other street closures here and there. For instance, expect a series of one-lane closures on Franklin and Bardwell at the intersections with Campus Avenue sometime soon.

“The new telecommunications duct bank will run along Campus,” says Streifel, and workers will need to excavate to install those ducts.

That work excepted, though, “we don’t expect too many closures of Campus itself this fall,” says Streifel. “When the time comes, we’ll certainly convey that to the campus.”

In fact, one pass at Campus Avenue utilities already happened. The week of Oct. 13, workers dug test pits to see what kind of stuff is under there besides dirt —specifically, to compare existing infrastructure with utility records.

90 Central Ave., the tan house at left, will be demolished in early November for the Campus Life Project. The foundations in the foreground will be removed during the winter. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

This is especially important when it comes to putting in new storm runoff and sewage lines, which must run downhill at a certain angle to maintain flow.

If there’s an obstacle that will goof up your elevation, it’s back to the drawing board. And indeed, Streifel says, the October work revealed “a couple of discrepancies that have caused us to adjust our designs.”

“Any time you’re digging, there’re unknowns. Even with the test pits, there may be more that we find when we make the bigger excavations.”

Well, enough notes from underground. Here on the planet’s surface, workers for subcontractor Gendron & Gendron will soon take care of some unfinished business left on the project site from last summer.

A big construction story back then, paradoxically, had to do with dee-struction, as college-owned houses on Central and Campus avenues were razed. But two houses were given a temporary reprieve.

Something to remember it by: 45 Campus Ave. in its last days. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

They were 90 Central Ave., across from Lewiston Middle School, which needed more abatement work and other prep; and 45 Campus Ave., right next to Campus Construction Update headquarters in the penthouse suite of the �ֲ���ý Communications Office.

Forty-five Campus contained telephone and data infrastructure that needed to be relocated and reconnected.

Well, the reprieve is over, and the two buildings could come down as soon as Nov. 1, says Streifel. The exact timing is up to general contractor Consigli Construction.

What else is up inside the green construction fence? In December, site preparation will take off: removal of building foundations and other detritus, leveling of the land, removal of soils unsuitable for building sites and their replacement with appropriate materials.

So now you know what’s about to happen. But you might be wondering why it hasn’t happened sooner. Well, thank the exigencies of the permitting process.

Seen over the construction fence: A cellar hole on the site of the future 55 Campus Ave. student residence. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Momentum slowed in recent weeks, Streifel explains, because �ֲ���ý was awaiting a permit from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, whose purview of construction projects covers everything from noise to air discharge to wildlife and habitat impacts to stormwater management.

You can see why it might take a while to process (not to mention fill out) the application.

But the permit arrived Oct. 16, says Streifel, and for now, “that was the last of the major regulatory hurdles.”

And so, with the utilities and site work in the weeks to come, progress on the Campus Life Project will at last be about building, not tearing down.

“We’re excited to be moving forward,” Streifel says. “We’re off to the races.”

Can We Talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your comments and questions. Please use the comment apparatus below or send an email, with “Campus Construction Update” in the subject line, to Doug Hubley at dhubley@bates.edu.

The Campus Avenue residences as they might appear from the air. That’s Chase Hall at lower left. (Ann Beha Architects)

“We heard this was going to be a very participatory process,” architect Philip Chen told about 100 �ֲ���ý people who gathered last month to learn more about new student housing planned for Campus Avenue.

“And it has been.”

The May 1 meeting was the latest of several presentations to campus and neighbors about the first phase of the Campus Life Project, announced last winter. And if those meetings sketched out scope and concepts, the May 1 session fleshed out that sketch with color and detail.

An architect’s preliminary rendering depicts 65 Campus Ave. (left) and 55 Campus Ave. (right) seen from the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. (Ann Beha Architects)

Principal architect on the Campus Avenue project, Chen was one of two representatives from Boston’s Ann Beha Architects on hand for the Mays Center event. Also presenting were Chris Streifel, managing the project for �ֲ���ý, and the college’s director of capital planning and construction, Pam Wichroski.

The session marked Beha’s completion of a process called schematic design, which determines the size, function and character of the buildings. Final design work will continue through 2014.

The same site (more or less) shown above as it looks today. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Perhaps the most engaging aspect of the presentation was a slide show, presented by Chen, that revealed for the first time how the new residences at 55 and 65 Campus Ave. might look.

Though preliminary, the renderings did reveal an architectural vision that incorporates beloved �ֲ���ý characteristics into the new residences. For, as Chen put it, one thing Team Beha heard from Team �ֲ���ý was that the new buildings must look like they belong here —that they are “of �ֲ���ý.”

So expect to see hipped roofs, some granite and a lot of brick, perhaps in the long-and-short “Flemish bond” pattern familiar from Chase Hall. But also expect plenty of glass that, wrapping around building corners, will admit sunlight by day to save electricity, and radiate interior light at night to brighten this new residential center and anchor the south end of campus.

The green space between 55 and 65 (shown) Campus Ave. (Ann Beha Architects)

Perhaps just as important to many �ֲ���ý people — and our neighbors — will be the attention paid to open green space, and to connectivity within the project and beyond.

Picture a horizontal rectangle and call it the project footprint. Both L-shaped, the new buildings form the lower left-hand and upper right-hand corners of that rectangle. At least in this preliminary vision, they face each other across a green space.

That space will dominate the views from inside and invite the rest of the campus to cross Campus Avenue and see what all the hubbub is about — a consideration that will gain force as Chase Hall is reimagined and renovated, some years down the road.

Hardscaping such as terraces and walls will encourage students to linger on the green space. And the stretch of Franklin Street where it meets Campus Avenue (and separates the new residences) may become a pedestrian zone closed to vehicular traffic.

A necessity in our increasingly soggy future, rain gardens are also planned that will manage storm runoff in a somewhat natural way.

Painted a cheerful orange, the laundry room at the 280 College St. residence is a popular hangout. Shown in this file photo are Halley Eliot ’08 (foreground) and Kaitlin Wellens ’11. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Supporting the premise that residential life is integral to the �ֲ���ý education, 55 and 65 Campus Ave. will incorporate design elements introduced in 280 College St., the newest campus housing to date, opened in 2007.

If you never factored window seats and laundry facilities into a successful college experience, think again. A goal of residential living is to keep students engaged with one another and not holed up in their rooms. And as Wichroski explained to the Mays Center audience, the laundry room at 280 is one of that building’s most popular spaces.

Students also like to study in spaces that are half in, half out of the traffic flow  — like window seats in dorm corridors.

So each building will have a laundry room and varied study spaces, as well as social spaces like living rooms, game rooms and kitchens. Residents will represent a mix of class years and will snooze in single or double rooms. 55 Campus Ave. will include an apartment for the residence coordinator serving both buildings.

There are other substantial differences. In fact, 65 Campus Ave. is the showboat of the pair. Its ground floor will house services that appeal to both campus and community constituents: the Campus Store and Office Services’ mail and package functions.

This rendering depicts 65 Campus Ave. in the foreground, seen from the corner of Campus and Central avenues. 55 Campus is visible in the distance. (Ann Beha Architects)

That building will be oriented toward both Campus and Central Avenue, its street doors open during business hours (ID cards will be required for access to the student quarters in the upper floors).

Wichroski and Streifel emphasized that, while the entire project will house at least 230 student beds, �ֲ���ý is not adding students. Instead, the Campus Avenue beds afford “swing space” enabling the college to shift students from overcrowded or outmoded residences that need work, notably Smith Hall (whose pending renovation will entail “de-densification” from the current quad format) and some wooden houses on Frye Street.

What about parking? — a topic of some concern to the Mays Center gathering. While the configuration of parking at �ֲ���ý may change, the number of parking spaces will not. The college is working with the city and campus security to determine how best to accommodate vehicles in response to the Campus Avenue project, said Doug Ginevan, assistant vice president for financial planning and analysis.

Finally, someone asked exactly which buildings would be coming down to make room for the Campus Avenue project. Here’s the list — and pick up some earplugs, because that work and its attendant crash-boom-roar begins later this summer:

From left: 67, 63 and 53 Campus Ave., photographed on June 2, 2014. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

• Campus Avenue: Nos. 45, 53 (the former �ֲ���ý Career Development Center), 63 (former Intercultural Center), 67 (former Alumni House) and 75 (former home of the philosophy and religious studies faculties). BCDC is moving to Canham House, on Wood Street, and the Intercultural Center is crossing Campus Avenue to Chase Hall. The philosophy and religion faculties went into Hedge Hall in 2011.
• Franklin Street: No. 84
• Central Avenue: Nos. 90, 100 and 106
• Bardwell Street: Nos. 109 and 111