A second-floor elevator shaft at 55 Campus Ave. is bracketed by unfinished wallboard. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Storefront glass reflects a south wall at 65 Campus Ave. on a sunny Jan. 28, 2016. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

A man studying plans in the basement electrical room of 65 Campus Ave. has asked us not to exit the building through a certain door. He’s concerned that the door, a temporary plywood affair, might blow open and let the rain in.

Passing that door on our way upstairs, we see that his concerns were justified: There’s a puddle on the concrete where the howling wind pushed the door in, along with a bucket of sand intended to hold it shut.

Elsewhere in the building, where plastic sheets cover large window openings, the wind makes the poly billow and bang like sails in a tempest.

It’s the afternoon of Feb. 16, a day when snow and rain are bridging a spell of arctic cold and a few days of unseasonable warmth. To get between buildings, we follow 乐播传媒 project manager Chris Streifel over a slick pudding of ice, snow, and mud as the rain rattles on our hard hats.

At work in the lobby of 55 Campus Ave. on Feb. 16, 2016. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

This complex of valves in the basement controls the clean water supply at 65 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Such harsh conditions are something for Campus Construction Update to wax poetic (or something) about 鈥� but it’s just another day on the job for the dozens of workers building 乐播传媒’ new student residences at 65 and 55 Campus Ave.

Most of them, anyway. It’s true that the weather has provided a day off for the people doing exterior work. And even if it hadn’t, their numbers are dwindling as they finish their assignments.

The Maine Masonry crew, in particular, continues to shrink. Having recently finished a major granite fa莽ade at No. 55, on a narrow wall facing Franklin Street, the masons are completing smaller installations and will drop out of the picture for a while within a couple of weeks.

“They’ll be back in the spring to finish up some things,” Streifel says.

An electrician hangs light fixtures in the “Treehouse,” the fourth-floor rec room at 65 Campus Ave., on Feb. 16, 2016. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Meanwhile, glaziers from the Augusta firm Oakes & Parkhurst are pushing ahead with placing plate glass, aka storefront, in the large openings where the wind was punishing the polyethylene during the storm. That work could be done by mid-March.

As agreeable as the views through the storefront will be for the inhabitants of 65 and 55, these expanses of glass will improve the visuals for passers-by, too. In the previous update, we discussed the impression the new dorms are making on the Campus Avenue streetscape. One goal of the design by Ann Beha Architects was to minimize the sense of height and weight created by the four-story, two-wing structures.

The storefront glass, especially on the building corners, is important to that goal, easing both the hard angularity and the sense of mass.

Installation of plate glass has begun on this stairwell at 65 Campus Ave. Photographed on Jan. 27, 2016. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Less conspicuous but no less important, both functionally and cosmetically, technicians from Industrial Roofing continue to install sheet-metal fascia and soffit coverings, of which there will be plenty. Like the glaziers, they will likely finish up in March 鈥� at which point, Streifel explains, the project team would prefer to have as few lifts, or cherry pickers, as possible on the construction sites.

Otherwise they would get in the way of the grading, landscaping, and other site work that needs to commence as soon as weather permits.

In other words, folks, the home stretch for this phase of the Campus Life Project that 乐播传媒 announced two years ago is now coming into view.

Inside the buildings, too, progress is abundantly evident. Substantially complete are spaces in both buildings that house the mechanical and electrical hearts of systems that will provide heating, lighting, plumbing, fire protection, security, and communications.

The mail and printing functions of Office Services will occupy this space in the basement of 65 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

For example, our tour of the 65 Campus Ave. basement reveals, among other infrastructure:

• electrical switchgear that will route power through miles and miles of wire hidden in the walls and ceilings;
• plumbing, like spaghetti writ really large (really, really large), for fire sprinklers, clean water, and waste water, as well as the hot water to heat the buildings during the bracing Maine winters;
• automatic transfer switches that, in case of an electrical outage, will fire up an emergency generator to keep juice flowing to essential services in the two buildings. The natural gas-fired generator will be placed by the loading dock at No. 65.

Raw drywall, no tape, no mud: A residential corridor on the second floor of 55 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

“They’re on the home stretch down there,” Streifel says. “Now they’re making all the final piping connections, final wiring, controls 鈥� key details. They’re looking to begin startups on a lot of that equipment in March and April, and some of it sooner than that.” The IT network, for instance, will begin to come to life next week because building systems such as lighting and security depend on it.

Of course, activating these different systems is less straightforward than, say, pulling the lever and pushing the two or three buttons that make the starship Enterprise go faster than light. For any given system, “there’s a particular sequence they’ll follow to turn on equipment for the first time, to test it, and then to start bringing all the systems together,” Streifel explains.

In cases such as the electrical switchgear, generator, and certain major mechanical equipment, manufacturers will even send representatives to help with the startup.

Elevators have been or are being installed in both buildings. In the fourth-floor “Treehouse” at 65 Campus Ave., a decorative red oak wall covering is in place. The tiling in the spacious kitchen is essentially finished, and an electrician is just hanging the last pendent light fixture as we pass through.

Meanwhile, as Streifel points out, the infrastructure “rough-in” 鈥� the running of wires, pipes, etc., to their terminal points behind walls and above ceilings 鈥� is close to finished. This allows trades such as the drywall hangers, painters, and carpenters to finish off rooms. And that work is proceeding in leaps and bounds.

This space on the first floor of 65 Campus Ave. will be the College Store’s textbook area. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Climbing from the first to the fourth floors in either residence allows a visitor to see, more or less, successive stages of progress with the student rooms. This is because of the organizing principle for the work: Each trade has proceeded from the fourth story down (for the most part). And they do the corridors last, because otherwise, well, goodbye flawless wall surfaces.

Drywall, taped and mudded. These rooms on the third floor of 55 Campus Ave. belong to an asymmetrical cluster at one end of the building. There’s a similar enclave on the second floor, and one each on the same floors of 65 Campus. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

So 鈥� at the risk of oversimplifying 鈥� in a second-floor student corridor in 55 Campus you’ll see bare drywall fastened in place; on the third floor, the drywall seams have been taped and “mudded”; on the fourth floor, the walls have been primed and given the first coat of finish paint.

A completed student room 鈥� and there are quite a few in No. 65 at this point 鈥� will have all its paint, fittings like towel racks and shelves, interior trim on the window units, cover plates on the light switches and outlets, and gray wood-look vinyl flooring. All that’s left to do is to give it a good cleaning.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淟arge spaghetti鈥� in the subject line. Or use the comments system below.

Assorted cables sprout from a wall at 65 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

The new student residences at 65 (left) and 55 Campus Ave., seen at dusk Nov. 6, 2015. The cupola in between belongs to Lewiston Middle School. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Whatever the weather may bring, this winter will not be like last winter on the site where two new 乐播传媒 residences are being built.

What makes the difference is the simple fact that much of the forthcoming work will take place indoors at 55 and 65 Campus Ave. 鈥� whereas last year at this time, there was no indoors.

Cables, ducts and pipes will disappear behind the ceiling when 55 Campus Ave. is complete. Photograph taken Dec. 1, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Back then, workers under the overall supervision of Consigli Construction were still preparing the sites for building foundations, to say nothing of walls and roofs. So every heavy dose of winter weather, and there were a lot starting in January, stalled progress until snow could be cleared. And the workers, of course, had to contend with daylong exposure to cold and snow.

A laundry room in the making at 55 Campus Ave. on Dec. 1, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Now, although roofing and outdoor masonry are likely to continue at 55 Campus Ave. into January, most of the work outstanding now is interior. Things like building walls, running utilities, hanging ceilings, applying surface treatments, and so on.

So this year, says 乐播传媒 project manager Chris Streifel, winter’s biggest threat to progress would be weather that “prevents people from getting here and getting into the buildings.”

Maine Masonry was starting on the south wall of 55 Campus Ave. on Dec. 1, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Consigli has been planning for winter since summer, and its preparations have been facilitated by a benign autumn. (Pause while we figure out how to work “spring” into that sentence too . . . )

Tim Schneider, Consigli’s on-site project manager, explains that most of the winter prep falls into the realm of common sense. For example, laying in sand and salt to deal with slippery pavements, and tidying up the work site so tools and supplies are findable in the snow.

A drywall installer and an electrician fit out the fourth floor of 55 Campus Ave. on Dec. 1, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Of course, getting the buildings buttoned up and weatherproofed has been a priority through the fall, with heavy polyethylene sheets sealing the openings where permanent materials, such as “storefront” plate glass, have yet to be installed.

Keeping things toasty inside are gas-burning heaters: stationary high-capacity units to serve each building as a whole, and portable heaters for specific sites, such as the poly tent that has been draped over the mortar bins that the bricklayers use, since mortar needs to be kept warm.

Tank propane feeds the portable heaters. The whole-building heaters use natural gas, which is more economical, and are hooked into each building’s permanent Unitil gas feed.

Interestingly, the whole-building units are “indirect fired” 鈥� the gas combustion warms a heat exchanger, which in turn heats the fresh air that’s pumped into the building through big floppy ducts. Indirect firing minimizes moisture, which can adversely affect building processes like drywalling and flooring, and keeps out exhaust, which can adversely affect biological processes like living.

Concrete, brick, glass

A natural-gas fired heater pumps toasty air into the first and third floors at 65 Campus Ave. on Oct. 30, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Landscapers won’t be around to beautify the Campus Avenue compound till next spring or summer, and that will be something to look forward to. But subcontractor Gendron & Gendron had a crew at No. 65 this week doing some advance work: installing concrete foundations for features such as seat walls and benches.

Also in the realm of materials you don’t want to bang your head against, bricklayers for Maine Masonry are on the home stretch. They are polishing off details at No. 65, and next door have one last expanse to cover, a south wall facing away from the street and toward the parking lot.

“So we鈥檙e looking at a January time frame for the bricklayers to wrap up,” says Streifel. “And if there’s anything else, they’ll return in the spring.”

Meanwhile, a crew from the local branch of Industrial Roofing Companies is near the finish line at 65 Campus Ave. “They鈥檝e got the side walls of the mechanical well left to do, the caps on the tops of those walls, and there鈥檚 some other detail work. But essentially the shingling portion is complete,” says Streifel.

At 55 Campus, IRC folks are about half-done layering up the various sheet and rigid materials that form the roof substrate. Shingling will commence soon.

The other major component of a building’s envelope, of course, is the windows. For the technicians of subcontractor Oakes & Parkhurst, the 乐播传媒 job has two parts. The “storefront,” or plate glass, that will wrap around certain corners and enclose the street-level fa莽ade at 65 and other expanses hasn’t been top priority. So expect to see a lot of poly sheeting in its place on both buildings for a little while yet.

Storefront glass on the ground floor of 65 Campus Ave. reveals workers inside the building on Oct. 30, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

But some of the storefront is in evidence at 65, notably on the first floor, where you can see it from Campus Avenue through the construction fence. The聽storefront makes a very nice effect.

O&P’s top priority, instead, has been prefab window units that equip all the residential rooms. They are about done with those at 65 Campus, and are roughly at the halfway mark at No. 55. (The World Wide Web tells us that these units are described as “awning” windows, meaning that they are hinged at the top to open from the bottom.)

A roofing technician seen from the mechanical well at 55 Campus Ave. on Dec. 1, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Streifel explains that O&P is concentrating on the window units in order to make way for drywall crews, whose work includes making “returns” 鈥� recessed areas around the windows.

“It’s part of Consigli鈥檚 efforts to plan ahead and make sure that each trade can finish an area they’ve started,” Streifel says.

The 55 Campus Ave. residence glows at dusk on Nov. 9, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

“Without good planning it is easy to end up with subs only doing 90 percent of a space and then leaving. And then somebody else wants to get in there, and it just slows everyone down and lowers the quality.

“It’s important to both keep these guys moving at full speed and give them space so they can do 100 percent.”

You appreciate Consigli’s choreographic ability still more as you observe the people doing the interior work 鈥� wallboard installers, plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, tilers, and more.

Workers for Industrial Roofing atop 65 Campus Ave. on Nov. 10, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

“It can look chaotic in there, but there鈥檚 a method to the madness,” Streifel says. “Consigli鈥檚 doing a fantastic job, but I also give credit to Ann Beha Architects,” the Boston firm that designed the new residences.

乐播传媒 engaged the firm to design the residences 鈥� which are part of a greater Campus Life Project that will reinvent 乐播传媒’ southern periphery 鈥� after Beha conducted a preliminary planning study that involved significant campus participation.

A morning image of the new student residences on Campus Avenue, taken on Oct. 30, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

“They put together a design package that鈥檚 quite constructible and they are doing a great job of supporting the construction,” Streifel continues, referring to the portfolio of plans and specifications that Consigli and the subcontractors are following. “Overall it鈥檚 a cohesive set of documents and that makes it easier for Consigli to keep the work flowing.”

He explains, “A lot of times the stuff that鈥檚 in two dimensions doesn鈥檛 translate well to three dimensions, or there鈥檚 a lot more information that鈥檚 needed that isn鈥檛 in those two-dimensional drawings.

“There are varying degrees of completeness and quality that you find on construction projects and this, again, has been a good one.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or ‘Don’t bang your head!” in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

Taken by Judith Marden ’66 from an ultralight aircraft piloted by Mike Theriault on Oct. 12, 2015, this campus view shows the L-shaped Campus Life Project dorms at center. (Judith Marden ’66 for 乐播传媒 College)

An action-packed hour spent the other day with Chris Streifel, project manager for Facility Services and 乐播传媒’ point person on the Campus Life residential project, afforded some insight into the multifaceted work that 乐播传媒 project managers do.

A lounge, complete with fireplace, will occupy this first-floor space in 55 Campus Ave., photographed Oct. 20, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Two facets specifically: How Streifel interprets this major construction project for different 乐播传媒 constituencies (including Campus Construction Update readers).

And, more important and more intriguing, how Streifel and his Facility Services peers represent 乐播传媒’ interests when complex decisions must be made in the field.

Photographed Oct. 20, 2015, this greenly insulated first-floor space at 55 Campus Ave. will be a game room. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Streifel met CCU on Bardwell Street around noon Tuesday in front of the portable office occupied by staff from Consigli Construction, which manages the Campus Life Project work for 乐播传媒.

With the 乐播传媒 Board of Trustees scheduled to meet on campus later in the week, Streifel gave us a preview of the tour he was planning for that august group.

We began at 55 Campus Ave. 鈥� Campus Construction Update’s first visit inside the building, which is the virtual twin of 65 Campus and, by design, is a few weeks behind its sibling in the construction process. While the ground floor of 55 is still an undivided expense of exposed and unfinished building innards, Streifel walked us through spaces that in about a year will be buzzing with the electricity of student life.

Facing north toward Campus Avenue and east toward 65 Campus, an L-shaped lounge area will sport comfy furniture, a natural gas fireplace and a “laptop bar” facing out through a glass wall. A kitchen island, whose future space is currently occupied by an island of stockpiled metal wall studs, and a game room will occupy the rear of building, adjacent to a wing of dorm rooms.

Another view of the entrance lounge at 55 Campus Ave. A fireplace will be installed just past the large window opening. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Back outdoors, looking more (Streifel) or less (CCU) like we belonged there in our hard hats and reflective-chartreuse visibility vests, required on the work sites, we watched bricklayers at work on a long eastern wall of No. 55. That’s the third wall on that building, out of six, that Maine Masonry has gotten to, compared with No. 65, where last week masons began work on the next-to-last wall, facing Central Avenue.

We took a quick look at the wall-treatment mockup in front of 55, where Streifel pointed out an instance of how the mockup had served its purpose: One masonry product on the the mockup, a concrete paneling called Taktl, had become bleached out when a mason practice-washed the bricks above it. Lesson: Wash the bricks before the Taktl goes up.

Plenty of bricks have been washed over at 65 Campus, and there’s plenty of Taktl in place, a textured material mounted on metal frames and colored the charcoal gray that has become standard in the 乐播传媒 architectural palette in recent years.

In other realms of exterior progress, many of the window units that arrived during the first week of October have been installed, looking natty with Taktl accents underneath. And workers for Industrial Roofing have gotten most of the several layers of the roofing sandwich in place 鈥� different types of board, insulation, and water and air barriers 鈥� and will soon start topping it off with asphalt shingles.

The stack of metal wall studs marks the approximate location of a kitchen island in a student lounge at 55 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

One gets from one Campus Avenue construction site to the other by crossing Franklin Street. On Tuesday, the street was graded dirt, with new pavement coming in the near future. “We did so much work underground there, and it was in poor condition to begin with,” Streifel said, that closing the street for a few days to repave it was a no-brainer.

Moreover, as part of the Campus Life Project plan, the stretch of Franklin closest to Campus Avenue was made narrower at the same time. “We eliminated the parking lanes on each side, so it’s now just the width of two traffic lanes.”

Because No. 65 will house the College Store and Office Services, both of which will be open to the public, the building’s ground floor will differ from No. 55. Through entrances on Campus Avenue and at the corner of Campus and Central, you’ll walk into a reception area connecting to the store through a portal that will be locked outside business hours.

This image taken Oct. 20, 2015, shows contrasting masonry surfaces on a west wall of 65 Campus Ave.: brick and the rugged concrete paneling called Taktl. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

The store’s big windows will face Campus Avenue, and Office Services will look out on Central Avenue. Office Services will be reachable both through the store and a separate entrance, and will have its own lobby.

We headed upstairs, planning to check out dorm rooms, whose progress ranges from bare studs to new paint; the new subway-style wall tiles that have been finished in certain bathrooms; and a fourth-floor lounge that will have an awesome view once glass has replaced the plastic in the windows.

And then Streifel’s phone rang: He was needed to settle a question.

While Campus Construction Update roamed the fourth floor in an ecstasy of photographing subway tiles and coils of electrical cable (shiny!), Streifel met in a single dorm room with a city electrical inspector and with representatives from Consigli, project designer Ann Beha Architects, and the project’s electrical subcontractor, Lewiston-based DeBlois Electric.

The question involved the placement of the four electrical outlets that will equip each of the single dorm rooms.

While that placement had recently been finalized, following a decision about the standard furniture arrangement in the singles, some outlets had been installed prior to that determination and not conforming to it. Hence the fourth-floor confab.

Project manager Chris Streifel, photographed during the June 19 topping-off ceremony that marked the end of structural steelwork on the Campus Life Project dorms. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

“We had to figure out how to best realign what we want without completely redoing all the work that’s in place,” Streifel said, “trying to salvage the work that’s in place, and not create additional cost and time constraints for the contractor.”

In the end, it was an easy resolution: One outlet per room would be moved.

“The architect is the authority on this,” Streifel said, but “if we have a specific idea for these outlets that may be different from what they’d envisioned, then they’re usually going to defer to us, provided that we’re not violating any codes or any design issues that they see as important.”

Complete with natty charcoal-gray Taktl inserts, a third-story row of dorm-room window units had been installed at 65 Campus Ave. by Oct. 16, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

He continued, “In this case we inserted ourselves into the conversation to make sure that we got what we needed. They’re trying to build the beautiful, functional buildings that 乐播传媒 wants. And so I’m representing 乐播传媒 in the field, and conveying our desires and intentions.

When questions arise or design changes are needed, “Everybody’s looking for 乐播传媒 to approve the plans and decisions that are being made in the field.”

Industrial Roofing Corp. technicians roll a fabric barrier out over oriented-strand panels at 65 Campus Ave. on Oct. 8, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

But in the real world there will be questions, and it’s the project manager’s job to address them in a way that best serves several, and sometimes conflicting, interests, from student needs to the college’s costs, from the realities of a timetable to the needs of the maintenance and custodial staff who will keep the buildings in shape.

“You have to weigh all of those,” he says. “In this case, it was just trying to figure out how to give the students the most flexible electrical power options” 鈥� no small thing in this wired, wired world.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, future, and imaginary construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淪hiny!” in the subject line. Or use the comments system below.

The Grape Wall: Photographed Oct. 20, 2015, the south wall at 55 Campus Ave. is still naked purple wallboard. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

A wall framer at work on the second floor of 65 Campus Ave. on Aug. 26, 2015. The enclosed space at right is part of the building core. Visible beyond are the grounds of Lewiston Middle School. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Campus Construction Update is eyeing a deadline just minutes away.

Meanwhile, Consigli Construction, general project manager for 乐播传媒’ Campus Life Project, is looking ahead three or four months to winter, no doubt recalling the previous edition and its seemingly inexhaustible cold and snow. Not much fun for folks in the building trades.

Employees of Maine Masonry at work on the second story of 65 Campus Ave. on Aug. 26, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

But “my mantra has been, ‘Summer is coming,'” laughs Chris Streifel, who manages the construction of the two new residences on Campus Avenue for 乐播传媒. Of course, Streifel is talking about summer 2016, when he and Consigli will be racing to get the residences ready for occupancy by the start of school.

“We’re looking at the end game,” Streifel says. “We’re planning out into next summer, which should be a very busy time for 乐播传媒.”

Why busy? “We’ve got to move in, right? And that’s going to be a big process.” That move will involve accommodating 243 students, as well as relocating the College Store and Office Services, now quartered in Chase Hall and Lane Hall, respectively. The move will entail everything from selecting, purchasing, and situating furniture to acquainting Facility Services tradespeople and custodians with the new buildings at 55 and 65 Campus Ave.

“There’s a tremendous amount that will need to take place in a very compressed time frame next summer as the contractor wraps up and moves out, and we move in,” Streifel says. Looking ahead a full year is “not any too soon.”

This image taken Aug. 26, 2015, shows materials being applied by Maine Masonry: brick, precast concrete trim edging the brick, granite near ground level, and tan rockwool insulation. It must be tough shearing the rocks. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Of course, there’s another deadline that everyone on campus has in mind, and that’s the start of the forthcoming school year, on Sept. 8. “Given that we’re about to have a whole host of new and returning faculty, staff, and students on campus,” Streifel says, “certainly we want to present a good image.

“We’re tidying up the construction sites as best we can. Consigli’s been trimming back the weeds that grow in the nooks and crannies. But all along they’ve done a good job of keeping a clean site in general, so it’s not a lot of extra work to button it up a little tighter.”

Meanwhile, outside the construction fence, work is about done on the subterranean duct bank alongside Central Avenue, near the Gray Cage. Not a place where Donald, Daffy, and the AFLAC pitchman keep their money, the duct bank instead is a bundle of four 4-inch PVC conduits, encased in concrete, that will carry copper telephone lines and fiber optic data cables from the new dorms to a hub at Alumni Gym. The cables won’t be threaded through the conduits till after snowmelt next year.

The remaining visual evidence from that work is a nice new granite curb, with a grassy border just planted, rounding the corner from Campus Avenue onto Central Avenue. This new landscaping extends along Campus all the way down to Carnegie, incorporating the new “bumpouts,” or lateral extensions of the sidewalk at the crosswalks, that will make it much safer to traverse the busy avenue.

Wall work at 55 Campus Ave. on Aug. 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Speaking of roadways, no closures related to the Campus Life Project are scheduled for the immediate future.

Weatherproof film on the roof of 65 Campus Ave. on Aug. 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Sometime in the next month or two, though, expect partial closures on Bardwell Street and Central Avenue while gas lines are laid. And that work, Streifel says, will pretty much finish off Campus Life Project work outside the fence until spring 2016.

Hello, walls: So what about the new dorms? “We’re just moving, moving, moving,” says Streifel.

At No. 65, workers are charging ahead with the building’s exterior envelope. The metal decking on the peaked roof sections has been covered with a heavy weatherproof film, and the first layer of substrate is being applied 鈥� although a rainy August has somewhat frustrated the roofers.

For much of July and August 2015, Campus Avenue was closed for utilities work related to the Campus Life Project. This image is from Aug. 13. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

You’ve noticed flat areas on the fourth floor of No. 65 that look like the most enticing kind of balconies (similar to the penthouse balcony here at BCO headquarters, but without the potted tropical flowers). In fact, those long expanses are not balconies but are flat roofs, thusly designed for aesthetic reasons, and there will be no access to them.

Anyway, their coverings are done, thanks to the miracle of EPDM, or ethylene propylene diene terpolymer 鈥� synthetic rubber which comes in thick sheets and is relatively fast to install.

On the 65 Campus Ave. walls, meanwhile, workers from Maine Masonry, of Scarborough, are creating facades from dark gray granite, precast concrete trim, and extra-long “Norman” bricks. (A fourth type of surface treatment, the high-performance Taktl concrete panels, will be installed by a different team.) The Maine masons started work, on the Campus Avenue side of the building, during the second week of August.

Inside No. 65, other workers have made good progress framing out the walls around the building’s “core” 鈥� the central areas of each floor where bathrooms, the utility trunk lines, the elevator, and other mechanical services are concentrated. The framers start on student rooms next.

A permanent stairway at the south end of 65 Campus Ave., Aug. 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Next door at No. 55, the exterior studs and wall-boarding that began the second week of August is well underway, with the Dodger-blue vapor barrier rapidly gaining ground.

Again, if something happened at No. 65 that you want to see more of, just watch No. 55, because it will happen there soon. And there’s no point in betting on which building will be finished first, because No. 55 will always be behind.

But Streifel points out that while 55 is trailing 65 by about a month right now, it’s expected that the gap will narrow to about a week by this time next year. One reason for that, says clerk of the works Henry Gillert, is that much of the technology serving both buildings 鈥� heat, electricity, telephone, data services, etc. 鈥� will be based in No. 65, with pipes and conduits feeding 55. So there’s simply more stuff, and more technically involved stuff, to install at 65.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淒uck bank! Haha!鈥� in the subject line. Or use the comments system below.

Looking west down Campus Avenue from the corner of Central, Aug. 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Dock of the loading bay: Taken July 28, 2015, this southward view from the fourth floor of 65 Campus Ave. shows the future loading dock for the College Store and Office Services, and the soon-to-be paved parking lot. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

This July 24 image depicts a familiar sight at 乐播传媒 in July 2015: utility crews performing open-tar surgery on Campus Avenue while traffic finds a way around. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Getting Here From There Dept.: The end is in sight for the current run of utilities-related road closures on Campus Avenue.

Chris Streifel, 乐播传媒 project manager for the construction project that has necessitated the weeks of open-tar surgery, explains that there’s one more big job that will block traffic on the avenue altogether.

Into the week of Aug. 3, crews will close Campus Avenue at the junction with Central Avenue in order to lay conduits for communication and data cables serving the new student residences of the Campus Life Project.

The conduits, also known as a duct bank, will run from the student residence being built at 65 Campus Ave. north along Central to the Gray Athletic Building, and ultimately to a telecom hub in Commons.

The zoom lens compresses the view and the vibratory roller compresses the soil behind 65 Campus Ave. on July 28, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

In the meantime, expect partial closures elsewhere on Campus in the coming days as recent surgical sites are repaved and new curbs are installed on the campus side of the street.

No mere boring straight curbs that interest only dogs, these instead will be “bump-outs,” those rounded projections into the roadway that encourage traffic to slow for pedestrians. When the new dorms at 65 and 55 Campus Ave. open, in about 13 months, foot traffic across Campus will increase significantly.

Summer reruns: What you tend to notice when you’re following the construction of two very similar buildings is that you tend to notice things happening more than once. As Yogi Berra is said to have said, d茅j脿 vu all over again.

For instance, in the 乐播传媒 Communications Office, we have recently recognized the resumption after many months of a rumble perceptible all the way up here in the Campus Construction Update penthouse.

The cause is a so-called vibratory roller. Actually, that’s a category of machines that range from lawn mower-sized on up, and what’s being used at 乐播传媒 is an articulated rig that resembles what we used to call, back in the day, a steam roller. It’s helping to prepare the site
for a parking lot soon to be paved behind the 65 Campus Ave. residence.

This mockup at the 55 Campus Ave. work site shows surface treatments planned for the Campus Life dorms: brick, granite and high-performance Taktl concrete panels, at lower left. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

There’s a roller at the front of the machine, and inside that roller is a motor-driven off-center contraption that makes the roller vibrate. The vibration, in conjunction with the sheer weight of the machine, compacts loose soil to form a solid substrate. The next step is to lay one coat of asphalt, called the binder course, atop the compacted soil. The finish coat of asphalt comes later.

If it seems counterintuitive to pave so early, instead of waiting until all the other cosmetic stuff is done in summer 2016, it actually makes sense to lay the binder course now. Doing so enables project manager Consigli Construction to ensure the quality of the pavement preparation.

“You can put loads and wear on it, and find any soft spots in time, so when you put the finish coat on, you’re solid,” Streifel explains. Moreover, “you want a working surface that’s not mud, in the winter especially.

“And it provides the crews with more options to park on site, which is definitely a concern as we add more and more workers to the job.”

And then, in a case of vibratory roller redux, the pavers will move across Franklin Street and do it all again at 55 Campus. That’s the timetable for the Campus Life Project: In general, unlike Las Vegas, what happens at 65 Campus happens all over again at 55.

Lavender gypsum board, Dodger blue vapor barrier and the burgundy adhesive that holds them together. 65 Campus Ave. on July 24, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

What else are we seeing that we’ve seen already?

The concrete crew started pouring floor slabs at No. 55 in mid-July, and finished up its work once and for all on July 29, as the yellow Northeast Concrete boom truck and the nimble ride-on trowels returned to finish out the fourth floor.

More fun with the ride-on trowel — one of three that were smoothing fresh concrete on the ground floor of 55 Campus Ave. on July 16, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

In early August, plan to look up as new layers start to appear over the silvery metal roof decking at No. 65. Lots of layers: The roof system is a Dagwood sandwich that incorporates both gypsum board and oriented-strand board (a wood product); stick-on films that block infiltration of air and of water in its various states; insulation; and finally, asphalt shingles.

You may have noticed that each building has a conspicuous opening in its roof. Those are “mechanical wells” 鈥� essentially fourth-floor spaces, open to the elements, where ventilation equipment will be located.

Turning blue on a hot day: Insulation technicians apply a stick-on blue vapor barrier to the north wall of 65 Campus Ave. on July 28, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Having climbed both the fiberglass ladders and the scaffolding stairs that provide access to the upper floors of the residences, we can express our appreciation for another installation that metalworkers are doing: permanent stairs. Though not completed, one permanent stairway is already in place, at the west end of 65 Campus Ave.

Finally, there’s wall work. At No. 55, the exterior wall studs are just starting to go up 鈥� but at 65, that work’s nearly done, and roughly half of the structure has been sheathed in gypsum board.

Folded crane: Derrick collapsed and nearly ready for the road, the Link-Belt awaits departure from the 55 Campus Ave. site on July 31, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Workers next coat the dull lavender wallboard with a burgundy adhesive, which in turn is covered with a plastic weather barrier in an attractive Dodger blue. All in all, a feast for the eyes and a challenge to one’s vocabulary of color names.

Masons will start to conceal it all behind a brick fa莽ade in early August, as described previously. Between the two buildings, bricklaying will continue into the winter, with window installation to follow. But let’s not think about winter yet.

The boom times are over: The June 26 topping-off ceremony put a ceremonial end to the hanging of steel for the Campus Life residences. But we knew the steel chapter was really over on July 30, as Chelmsford Crane Services dismantled the mighty Link-Belt crane that had hoisted into place the 635 tons of steel that’s holding the buildings up.

The crane was removed on July 31, after more than three months at 乐播传媒. Too bad: No matter how far afield you might wander, the crane, like the Eiffel Tower, was visible from such a distance that you could always find your way back to campus.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淢mmmmm, Dagwood sandwich鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

Engineers stand in the future “mechanical well,” where air handling gear will be located, at 65 Campus Ave. on July 28, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Work continues through the rain at 55 Campus Avenue on July 1, 2015. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

Getting Here From There Dept.: As Campus Construction Update’s mother always says, “Underground utilities work is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

The Allen Engineering Pro900 ride-on trowel, photographed at 65 Campus Ave. on June 12, 2015. The rusty material in the background is steel mesh reinforcement for the concrete floor slabs. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

This was borne out in the preliminary stages of a street excavation related to the Campus Life Project during the week of July 6. When workers opened up Campus Avenue, explains 乐播传媒 project manager Chris Streifel, “they found sewer lines that aren’t at the elevations that they expected, water lines in locations different than expected, other utilities that aren’t shown on any plans聽鈥� presumably abandoned utilities, from a bygone era, that didn’t make the maps.”

Construction management firm Consigli Construction will work with the city and the college to figure out what those abandoned pipes might be. So a new plan is being developed for the utilities work. Updating what we told you in June, a full closure of the Campus Avenue entrance to campus (between Chase Hall and Muskie Archives) is now planned for July 13鈥�17, with sporadic partial closures into August.

Workers install wallboard at the new student residence at 65 Campus Ave. on July 9, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

And readers should expect to encounter frequent partial and full closures of vehicle traffic on Campus Avenue throughout July.

Hello, walls: In mid-June, Campus Construction Update was bemused by the sight of something resembling a bumper car zipping around on the second floor of the 65 Campus Ave. residence.

It turned out to be a “ride-on trowel” 鈥� a riding machine used to smooth freshly poured concrete. It moves on two whirling rotors or fan-like arrays that both propel the machine and treat the concrete. The blades drive down the coarser elements in the concrete mix, leaving the smoother “cream” at the surface.

A fireproofing technician adjusts his applicator at 65 Campus Ave. on July 1, 2015. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

Steering with joysticks that cause the rotors to tilt on their axes, the operator can send the machine in any direction. And it moves pretty fast. Fun.

Along with pouring floor slabs and riding around on them, workers made good progress spraying sections of the steel framework with fireproofing, a cementitious plaster that preserves structural integrity in the unlikely event of a fire.

But there’s bigger news at 65 Campus. The dramatic views through the open framework of the new student residence are fast disappearing. Workers have installed many of the metal exterior wall studs and, starting around July 7, have made quick progress in covering the studs with gypsum wallboards on the side facing Campus Avenue.

The wallboards, an attractive purple resembling grape bubble gum, will later be coated with a thin moisture-blocking skin, and finally sheathed with either granite, high-performance Taktl concrete panels, or bricks. (If you’re out strolling with your 8-foot stepladder, as we often are, peek over the construction fence at 55 Campus Ave. and take a look at the wall mockup for a visual representation.)

Workers at 65 Campus Ave. on July 2, 2015. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

The bricks are especially interesting, and should be coming out of the kiln any day now at , a firm located in Auburn, across the river from 乐播传媒. As project manager Streifel explains, “They’re really working hard for us to make a new brick they’ve never made before”: an elongated style called the Norman brick.

The Norman is the same width and height as a standard brick, at 3 5/8 and 2 1/4 inches respectively, but is nearly half again as long 鈥� 11 5/8 inches. Visually, the Normans will further emphasize an already pronounced horizontality in the new dorms, but they’ll be laid in a pattern that provides contrast.

This so-called Flemish bond pattern alternates full-length bricks, aka stretchers, with short bricks, or headers, in a contrasting color. 乐播传媒’ Chase Hall is a good example of Flemish bond (not to be confused with the Ian Fleming Bond pattern).

Streifel estimates that some 160,000 bricks, counting headers and stretchers, will end up covering the two dorms. Bricks will be tested for size and strength as well as salt content, which indicates the potential for efflorescence 鈥� that phenomenon when minerals bloom out whitely onto the brick’s surface in response to moisture.

Bond 鈥� Flemish Bond (on Chase Hall).

Morin bricks are abundant at 乐播传媒, including in the 2008 dining Commons and the renovations of Hedge and Roger Williams halls, reopened in 2011. Founded in 1912, Morin serves the Northeast and Canada, with its products visible on such landmarks as the Boston Harbor Hotel and Toronto’s historic Fort York.

Between No. 65 and No. 55, Streifel suggests that exterior wall work and window installation is likely to progress into early winter. Getting the buildings weathertight, of course, is a priority that only gains urgency as the cold weather approaches.

Erectors working for Stellar Steel mount roof supports on the 55 Campus Ave. student residence on July 6, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Beaming with pride: As recounted in words and pictures by a 乐播传媒 Communications team, a topping-off ceremony at 55 Campus Ave. during the afternoon of June 26 symbolically marked the conclusion of steelwork for the two Campus Life Project student residences.

Covered with signatures from members of the campus community, and embellished with the traditional evergreen tree (and the increasingly traditional GoPro camera), a beam was hoisted by the Link-Belt crane and fastened into place on the 55 Campus Ave. dorm by workers from Stellar Steel. 乐播传媒 President Clayton Spencer and others spoke during the event, which drew more than 100 people.

“It was a great event 鈥� very successful,” Streifel says. “It marked a poignant transition for the project. We had great participation from faculty and staff, the contractors, and the community. It was what we wanted.” Though a traditional practice in the building of steel-framed buildings, the celebration was the first such event at 乐播传媒 in recent memory.

As noted, though, the ceremony was symbolic. Heavy steel work continued the following week at 55 Campus, while installation of shiny corrugated roof decking and finish work will likely go on a bit longer.

And then watch for the concrete truck and the ride-on trowel.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淚 don’t get the Ian Fleming thing鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

Getting to work at 65 Campus Ave. on June 12, 2015. The yellow arm is a boom for pumping in concrete for floor slabs. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

The 55 Campus Ave. student residence on the morning of June 10, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Getting Here From There Dept.: Are you driving to 乐播传媒 in July? If so, please note that plans are afoot to close Campus Avenue adjacent to the new student residences for most of the month. The closure will allow for work on storm drainage and pedestrian crossings.

Campus Life Project planners will be consulting across the 乐播传媒 community to make sure disruptions to campus access for deliveries, etc., are kept to a minimum. We’ll share details as we learn them.

Holding the ends of cables attached to the construction crane, steelworkers look for the next pieces to be lifted into place at 55 Campus Ave. on June 2, 2015, the first day of steel work. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Pedal to the Metal: It’s happening again: Steel is soaring over the construction site for 乐播传媒’ Campus Life Project, phase one, which comprises two student residences that will be completed in 2016.

About a week after they finished placing metal roof decking on the first dorm, at 65 Campus Ave., the workers from Stellar Steel Erectors crossed Franklin Street to the 55 Campus construction site, bringing the lofty Link-Belt crane over with them.

The new student residence at 55 Campus Ave. as seen from the corner of Bardwell and Campus on June 3, 2015, the day after steelworkers started erecting the skeleton. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

The first shipment of steel for the second dorm arrived on June 1 and the building’s metal structure started to grow the following day.

As with 65 Campus, progress has been mind-bendingly fast. By Thursday, June 4, there was steel up to the second story in the area where Stellar had begun, and by June 8, the erectors had turned the corner and started the building’s south wing. It’s expected that the steel framework at No. 55 will be done by the end of June.

Last week Campus Construction Update had the rare pleasure of watching the latest steel choreography from a new perspective: the second and third floors of 65 Campus. (It was a welcome break from teetering atop the 8-foot stepladder next to the construction-site fence.)

In our party were Chris Streifel, managing the project for 乐播传媒, and the college’s clerk of the works, Henry Gillert; and Tim Schneider, project manager for lead contractor Consigli Construction.

The Trimble “total station,” fastened to a beam at left, guides the surveyor (back to camera) as he marks utilities sites at 65 Campus Ave. on June 3, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

With 15 months to go before students move in, No. 65 is a raw metal skeleton, open to the four winds and demanding of some caution. Underfoot was corrugated metal subflooring punctuated with so-called Nelson studs, metal projections that will give the concrete floor something to cling to. (A heavy metal mesh, like chicken wire on steroids, embedded in the concrete will strengthen the slab even more.) An occasional shower of sparks tumbled from above as a welder worked on the subflooring one story up.

With walls still to come, the views were impressive, especially into the 55 Campus work area and along Campus Avenue westward toward Chase and Carnegie halls. We also got a bird’s-eye view of the road excavation, for sewer connections, responsible for Campus Avenue closures last week and this week.

But something even more interesting to observe was much closer.

Guided by a Trimble “total station,” a surveyor uses a high-tech staff to mark utilities sites at 65 Campus Ave. on June 3, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

It was a surveyor who was marking spots on the subflooring where plumbers, electricians, and other utilities folks will soon be cutting holes and inserting hardware. Carrying a tall staff, the surveyor worked so fast it almost seemed random, spraying little circles in different colors of paint 鈥� red for electrical, blue for potable water, etc. 鈥� onto the silvery metal.

What made this possible, of course, was advanced technology. During the past several weeks, in a conference room somewhere in Cutten Maintenance Center, a team of very smart people has been busy building both new residences 鈥� electronically.

The team has used three-dimensional modeling techniques to identify the locations of all the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure. They have snaked it around steel beams, above ceilings, and behind walls, ensuring that it will be out of sight but accessible when access is needed.

These electronic representations can be downloaded into something called a “total station” 鈥� the contemporary version of the surveyor’s theodolite. This gizmo uses infrared light, precision optics, and other unfathomable processes to measure distances, angles, and so forth in three dimensions.

On the third floor of 65 Campus Ave., June 3, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Via that high-tech staff, which can talk to the total station and can also spray paint, the total station guides the surveyor in his mark-making (the potential for very precise graffiti is rather thought-provoking). As he went from place to place, the Trimble-brand total station rotated on its mounting after him like a dog watching its owner.

In addition to precision-guiding a human being within a space, equipment similar to the total station can also map interior and exterior features; useful when you are planning a thorough rehab of a historic building, for example. “Every dimple, every curve, every feature will show up on that scan,” Streifel explained.

The 55 Campus Ave. construction site is shown from the second floor of No. 65 Campus on June 3, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

What to expect in the coming weeks? Consigli’s Tim Schneider estimated there will be an average of 30 workers on the project over the next few weeks, but that number will grow quickly as more trades arrive on site. At 55 Campus, hanging steel will preclude most other work.

Back at No. 65, though, the chores will diversify. With floor decking complete, pouring the floor slabs atop the decking began June 5, and the big flexible boom of the concrete pump truck is hard to miss. That will take most of June.

The new student residence at 65 Campus Ave., seen on June 3, 2015, from what will be a rain garden. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

“And it won’t be long after the slabs are down that you can start building everything else,” Streifel said. Wall studs for the exteriors and for the residences’ interior cores, where features such as elevators, bathrooms, and stairwells are concentrated, will start showing up before the end of the month.

And, as the surveyor’s work makes obvious, utilities work will soon start 鈥� or actually resume, as all kinds of pipes and conduits were set into the concrete while the foundation was being poured during the winter and spring.

Chase Hall and Carnegie Science Hall, seen from the third floor of 65 Campus Ave. on June 3, 2015. Note the Nelson studs on the floor decking. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Streifel characterized the current utilities work as “roughing in,” installation of the trunk lines that distribute services throughout the building. For vertical conduits, aka risers, tradespeople will be working on cutouts and chases 鈥� channels that enclose pipes 鈥� to go from the ground floor to the fourth floor.

“They’re also preparing to put in hangers,” brackets that support conduits from the ceiling for horizontal runs. Streifel explained that many of the marks made by the surveyor were locations for bolts and straps to which the hangers will be attached from beneath. “There’s a special kind of fitting that will go into the deck and get covered over by the slab.”

55 Campus Ave. seen at noon on June 10, 2015, eight days after steelwork began. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

All the various utilities trades will be going at it more or less simultaneously. The roughing-in phase, Streifel adds, “kicks off what’s going to be a long progression” of tasks that are increasingly fine and location-specific 鈥� all the way down to screwing on switch plates and attaching shower heads. That phase will likely extend well into spring 2016.

With the salient exception of the basement that underlies half of the building at No. 65, the two dorms are very similar. So the phases of construction that we observe at 65, we’ll see again at 55 鈥� except they may go a bit faster because, after all, practice makes perfect.

And we’ll tell you all about it in July, when Campus Construction Update returns.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淟et’s talk more about the precision-guided graffiti鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

A safety warning on the steel floor decking at 65 Campus Ave. Once again, Campus Construction Update takes the big risks to get you the information you need. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

With a piece of structural steel in the foreground awaiting its ride in the sky, the skeleton of the 65 Campus Ave. student residence is shown on May 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Getting here from there (updated May 28!): 乐播传媒-bound motorists, watch for full closures of Campus Avenue the weeks of June 1 and June 8.

• June 2 and 3, Campus will be closed between Bardwell and Franklin streets;
• June 4 and 5, from Franklin to Central Avenue;
• and June 8 and 9 from Franklin right into the Central Avenue intersection. But note that a lane from Franklin across Campus into the Chase Hall service road will be open throughout.

You’ll be directed to a Vale Street detour while these two blocks of Campus undergo surgery to make sewerage connections. See a diagram of the closures.

Uprights in place on the first day of placing steel at 65 Campus Ave., April 22, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

We’ll steel away: It’s just shy of a month since the steel started rising for 乐播传媒 College’s new student residence at 65 Campus Ave. But already the shape and, more intriguingly, the size of the building are fully discernible.

The steel skeleton is the full four stories high. The roof structure started appearing on May 11 and was nearly done by the 19th. Most of the shiny corrugated metal decking that will support the concrete floors is in place.

A rigger for Stellar Steel looks for the next piece of the 65 Campus Ave. metal to give to the crane on April 22, 2015. Note the markings on the components that specify where and in what order they will be placed. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

So at this point it doesn’t take too much imagination to picture the transformation that’s coming to 乐播传媒’ south side as No. 65 and its fraternal twin at No. 55 near completion, more than a year from now. And that mental picture will be even easier to conjure up come June, when steel starts rising for 55 Campus.

Construction manager Consigli Construction and its subcontractors have made good progress since work in the field began, nearly a year ago 鈥� but it hasn’t always seemed like it, between a heavy winter, the green fences that block views of the construction and the fact that until mid-April, much of the work happened below grade.

The label on a piece of steel indicates where in the 65 Campus Ave. structure it will be placed, and when. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

But now the job is flying along, literally and metaphorically. “I’ve been very pleased,” says Chris Streifel, who manages the construction project for 乐播传媒. The steelwork at No. 65 “has been a well-orchestrated process, from the structural design to the fabricators’ design to the final approvals.”

Everyone has “worked diligently and thoroughly. And the result is that it’s been a fairly trouble-free installation. It doesn’t always work as smoothly in the field as this has.”

Erectors at work on April 22, 2015, the first day of hanging steel at the 65 Campus Ave. student residence. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

It’s always pleasant to watch other people work (especially when watching them is your work). But watching Stellar Steel Erectors of West Suffield, Conn., hang metal is flat-out compelling, between the aerial ballet of the steel dangling from the crane and the seeming ease with which the skeleton has gone together.

The state of the steel at 65 Campus Ave. on May 7, 2015, seen from Central Avenue and the official Campus Construction Update ladder. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Stellar’s crew at 乐播传媒 is a mere eight or nine workers. Up on the building, the people who are actually grabbing the steel out of the air and fastening it into place are called erectors.

On the ground is the rigger, who coordinates the work. He and an assistant called a flagger arrange the steel in a sensible order on the ground as it arrives from fabricator Norgate Metal. The rigger directs the erectors and the crane operator and keeps the steel pieces, marked accordingly by Norgate, floating up in the proper order.

The Link-Belt crane can lift 40,000 pounds to a height of 300 feet. The crane operator, with some radio guidance and hand signals from colleagues, places all of the steel solely by eye 鈥� no GPS or GoPro helping out.

The student residence at 65 Campus Ave. has entered its third week of steel placement in this image taken May 7, 2015. Notice the second-floor welding at right. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Making every lift count, the rigger will often attach to the crane’s cables as many as three steel components 鈥� and no more than three, according to OSHA regulation 鈥� making what insiders call a “Christmas tree.”

Campus Construction Update admires the metal’s tasteful palette of pale gray and dull maroon (sorry, Bobcats: not quite garnet), but in fact there’s a reason the colors vary.

With gray conduits for electrical, telecom and data service in the foreground, workers build a form for concrete footings at 55 Campus Ave. on May 7, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Some steel components will later be coated with paint. Others will take fire-resistant coatings, such as a thick textured spray-on goop or so-called intumescent paint, which, in the unlikely event of a fire, help keep the steel below the temperature 鈥� upwards of 800 degrees Fahrenheit 鈥� at which it starts to droop.

Different coatings require different primers, and the different primers come in different colors, says Consigli project engineer Kirk Mullen.

Concrete mixers ready to place foundation footings for the 55 Campus Ave. student residence on May 7, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Tim Schneider, Consigli project manager, explains that every joint in the steel skeleton has been designed by an engineer. Some joints are welded, typically when necessary for structural rigidity or in areas where a nut and bolt can’t physically fit. External inspectors make sure the welds are done right.

Most joints, though, are fastened with good old nuts and bolts 鈥� albeit much beefier than the ones that your Dad kept in old Sanka jars on the shelves above the workbench. These nut-and-bolt connections each need to be tightened to a specified tension.

With a “Christmas tree” — multiple pieces of steel in one lift — dangling from the crane, the framework of 65 Campus Ave. is shown from the west on May 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Back in the day, the prevailing “turn of the nut” method involved some math, so-called match-marks and a couple of loving caresses with a big wrench to attain the proper tightness. But today’s fasteners, like technology in so many other areas, tell you whether you’re doing it right.

So-called tension control bolts, or TCBs, come with a sacrificial part that breaks off when the desired tension is reached. (Pencils serve a similar role here in the Campus Construction Update penthouse when the big wrench of deadline pressure is applied.)

A tension-control bolt, with nut. As the fastening is tightened, the ribbed piece at right snaps off the bolt when the proper tension is reached. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

TCBs make visual inspections fast and straightforward, Schneider says. Streifel adds that “the TCBs themselves are tested on site to make sure they snap off at the right tension. And the guns they tighten them up with are calibrated to make sure they’re applying the right torque. So there’s a lot of checking and double-checking.”

Speaking of which, in a final step, the erectors periodically true up their latest work and only then finalize the fastenings. “Steel isn’t perfect 鈥� it’s got some bends and waves in it,” Streifel explains. “Each crew has their own technique, but usually you’ll put portions of a structure together loosely just to make sure it all fits.

“For example, when you need to put a crosspiece in between two other pieces, you might have to push them apart a little bit to get it in. And if you’ve bolted everything up rigidly, you’ve lost your flexibility to do that.”

With this phase of the Campus Life project now ahead of schedule, Streifel expects Stellar to move crew and crane across Franklin Street in two or three weeks.

“All other things being equal,” he says, “the steel should go slightly faster at 55 Campus Ave. The building is a little bit smaller, and without a basement it’s less complicated than 65.

“And you always get the benefit when you’ve done something before that you’re going to go faster the second time.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淲hat did those pencils ever do to you?鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

The crane lowers a piece of steel into place at 65 Campus Ave. on May 13, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

The Link-Bilt crane in place at the 65 Campus Ave. construction site on April 21, 2015, ready to start hoisting into place the steel framework of a new student residence. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

In regard to the Campus Life Project and 乐播传媒’ two new student residences, it’s time to stop thinking about the ground and instead turn our eyes to the sky 鈥� at least as high as 55 feet.

The crane being erected on Franklin Street on April 20, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College>

With foundation work for the residences on Campus Avenue well past the halfway mark, the construction team is ready to start building the steel skeletons for the two dorms. Workers for Stellar Steel Erectors of West Suffield, Conn., could be hanging steel as early as today.

“That’s a big milestone,” 乐播传媒 project manager Chris Streifel says. “That will be the first work that people will really be able to see,” because of the fence enclosing the construction sites.

“Things will poke up above the site fence and it鈥檒l start to seem really tangible.”

Stellar Steel arrived last week and got the crane erected April 20, assembling the massive self-propelled Link-Belt at the 55 Campus Ave. construction site and then moving it across Franklin Street to 65 Campus, where the steelwork will begin. There the crane will occupy a pad of soil specially graded and compacted 鈥� compacted to 95 percent of possible density 鈥� to support the Link-Belt’s weight.

Referring to lead contractor Consigli Construction, Streifel added that this step forward “speaks highly of Consigli鈥檚 great work managing the challenges that we faced during the winter,” which included an unexpected need for additional site preparation and the cold, snowy winter itself.

Excavations and forms for footings at 55 Campus Ave., seen on April 14, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

You or I might say that we “drove” or “maneuvered” or “skippered” the crane over to 65 Campus (because we would be so likely, and eager, to get that opportunity). But the people who actually deal with big cranes use the verb “walk.” They walked the crane over, because walking speed is plenty fast enough.

Longtime Campus Construction Update readers know that structural steel is typically cut, fitted, marked up and otherwise prepared for assembly before it’s shipped to the work site.

The growing foundation of the student residence at 65 Campus Ave., seen on March 26, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Totaling 635 tons, the structural steel going into the new 乐播传媒 residences has been fabricated by Norgate Metal of La Guadeloupe, Quebec 鈥� a “hard-driving company,” .

“There鈥檚 some site fabrication, but very little,” Streifel says. “It鈥檚 a very engineered system, designed specifically down to the last nut and bolt, and how tight those nuts and bolts need to be and how big the welds are. It鈥檚 closely detailed in advance.”

Van Terrell, S.W. Cole Engineering field technician (third from left), prepares to use the green gizmo at his feet to check the soil density in the 65 Campus Ave. cellar hole on April 14, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

So the steelwork on site has something in common with using an Erector set, allowing for the obvious differences in scale, risk and importance (not to mention the likelihood that your playmates will monopolize the tools).

When the steel starts swinging, there will be six companies represented on site in all trades, employing 35 to 40 workers.

Meanwhile, foundation work continues. To date, 1,107 cubic yards of concrete have been poured, of a planned total of 1,610, and 130 tons of rebar are embedded within that concrete, out of 170 planned. (Thanks to Consigli staffers Tim Schneider, project manager, and Larry Chouinard, general superintendent, for those figures.)

The foundations at 55 and 65 are quite different. The former, in essence, has a slab on grade (with structural supports going deeper), and the latter, as we have previously pointed out, will have a full basement underlying one wing.

Concrete samples ready for the lab. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

It has been fascinating to watch: first, the excavation and preparation of the site and then, since early March, the creation of a seeming labyrinth or fortress of footings, walls, columns, sumps and pipes. Standing inside the basement of a finished building, you’d never dream of the complex structure that surrounds you.

Virtually all the basement walls at 65 Campus were finished by late last week, but concrete will still be flowing even after steel starts to swing. The last wall to be poured will appear at the southern end of the basement, future site of the loading dock that will serve Office Services and the College Store. That wall must wait until there’s no more need to run heavy equipment into the basement, Consigli’s Tim Schneider explains.

And the floor slab at No. 65 will be poured in early June.

A waterproofing technician steps away from an exterior basement wall at 65 Campus Ave. on March 26, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

Gone now are the blankets and heaters that kept the concrete warm enough to cure during the endless winter. Throughout the process, technicians from Maine-based S.W. Cole Engineering have brought samples from each batch of concrete, cylinders about the size of a salami, back to the lab to pressure-test them at regular intervals of time, as they cure. Schneider explains that concrete has to cure to about 75 percent of its designed strength before it can carry steel.

Well, we started in the sky but have somehow ended up back on the cold damp earth. (Ah, life, why must you be so?) Under-slab drainage and ventilation pipes at No. 65 have passed their tests, Schneider notes. He describes one vault-like section of the basement that will house a three-chamber active drainage system, designed to pump storm- and groundwater up to an existing stormwater collector.

We’ll never see it, but we’ll be glad to know it’s there.

Wooden forms for wall (narrow) and spread (wide) footings at 55 Campus Ave. on April 14, 2015. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

At 55 Campus, the building footprint is discernible from the foundations now in place. The pace of foundation work is picking up, and by the end of the month we’ll see minor closures of Campus Avenue to make gas and sewer connections. Electrical feeds were brought in last fall, and water hookups will come later.

• For information on current construction activities and planned lane closures, please visit /improvements/campus-avenue-housing/.

Then as the steelwork at 65 Campus wraps up, probably around the beginning of June, there will be a nice episode of contractor choreography as the utilities crews cross over to 65 and Stellar Steel walks the crane back across Franklin Street to 55 Campus.

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past and future construction at 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥�10 Easy Steps to a More Funnier Sense of Humor!鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

Somewhat distorted by reflections in the glass, this image of the Campus Avenue construction sites (65 Campus is to the left) was taken on April 14, 2015, from the 乐播传媒 greenhouse atop Carnegie Science Hall. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 College)

At work on a foundation at 65 Campus Ave. (Doug Hubley/乐播传媒 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 鈥� may we suggest a linear strain conversion transducer? 鈥� 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/乐播传媒 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 乐播传媒’ 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/乐播传媒 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 鈥� making amazing progress just this week. “They may end up working continuously on 55 Campus,” says Chris Streifel,聽 乐播传媒 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/乐播传媒 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 乐播传媒 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/乐播传媒 College)

Recently there have been about 30 workers on the project between Consigli Construction, supervising the project for 乐播传媒, 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 鈥� all resembling black tarps 鈥� 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 鈥� while playful March breezes tease your ears and fingers and put you in mind of Tahiti 鈥� 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 乐播传媒. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting 鈥淐ampus Construction鈥� or 鈥淭ahiti! When?鈥� in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.