The Quad has its ribbon-cutting as the Triad gets gutted and fenced in.

The demolition of Riddick Stadium has finally been finished, just in time for renovations to Riddick Labs.

Fences and construction equipment have cropped up all along Lampe Drive with renovations now under way on Withers, Daniels and Burlington.

The Court of North Carolina has renovations on Leazar Hall and Peele Hall.

The Brickyard is hedged in by renovations on the East Wing of D.H. Hill Library and the Free Expression Tunnel, and will soon see renovations to Gardner Hall, and groundwork began on the walkways between Kilgore and Bostian Halls.

Orange fencing just went up outside the Bookstore on the Courtyard Access.

Students walk through fenced-in alleys between buildings, dodge caution tape and drown out the noise of jackhammers and drills with their iPods and cell phones, and they wonder, “Why so much construction?”

It seems campus has been tied up in caution tape all year, but according to Mike Harwood, the University architect, this is because attention has shifted from work on Centennial to work on North Campus — the portion most students recognize as Main Campus and the center of activity.

“Most people didn’t notice the construction on Centennial because it was concentrated — it was out of sight,” he said.

Work has also shifted from construction of new buildings to the renovation of existing buildings with various problems, he said, and added that “renovations are messier [and] more noticeable than construction.”

These renovations stem from practical problems, but often yield very positive and student-friendly results.

“The focus is to fix what’s wrong with buildings, and we’re always looking for ways to improve and personalize buildings we’re working on,” Harwood said.

Mechanical and electrical problems are two common causes for renovation, he said, and once work has started it is possible to make aesthetic improvements and cater to students’ needs.

“We use the opportunity to improve the appearance and fabric of the campus,” he said.

One such example is the Riddick lounge, which will be an addition to Riddick Labs and will be patterned loosely after the Caldwell lounge, which has couches, chairs, tables and a snack area where students can relax, talk, study and spend time between classes comfortably.

The common area outside of Withers 216 will also see more student-geared space.

“We’re creating a student lounge outside that big auditorium,” Harwood said. “We don’t have enough of those cool spaces.”

Inconvenience

While students recognize the need for renovations and appreciate the improvements, they are also impatient when these don’t meet projected completion dates.

“The projects take too long,” Roshaunda McLean, a junior in psychology and Africana studies, said. “They project a time when they should be done, then they’re just not done and that puts us at an inconvenience in getting to classes. They should inform us more, project more realistic dates and keep to deadlines.”

If contractors and planners find a perfect chance to improve a building’s value, efficiency or appeal, they will deal with a small delay to add this in to the renovation, Harwood said.

He says he doesn’t want students to think the timeframe for projects is decided at random — there is extensive planning before schedules are made in order to maximize efficiency, convenience, space and resources.

“Coordination is our biggest problem, we have to work around access problems,” he said, such as when construction vehicles and supplies are needed in an area where several projects are already or will be under way.

There are constraints in all projects, he said, and sometimes these can cause delays, most notably they can’t start some programs until others are finished.

“For example, we knew that the First Year College [Commons Building] would need facilities, and so we didn’t want to tear up Cates [Avenue] until that is done,” Harwood said.

The new commons building, located between the Health Center and Carmichael Gym, should be completed by the end of this semester.

Upcoming Projects

According to the University’s Physical Master Plan, improvements to Dan Allen Drive and Cates Avenue are scheduled to begin this summer. There will be no additional changes in traffic patterns, according to Harwood; the project will be “just repaving.”

“The road is deteriorating. Plus we don’t have the advantage of that Varsity Drive intersection, either.”

The plan is to “take up whole sections and put down more stable cover.”

Plans like these don’t appeal to all students, though. “They forget about summer school,” Ashley Taylor, a junior in psychology, said. “There aren’t as many people on campus, but there are still students [who] have to get to class during the summer when they start all these projects.”

“The summer of ’06 will be worse than the summer of ’05,” Harwood said.

Construction is also scheduled to hit the Brickyard over Spring Break, with a section of walkway from Kilgore to Bostian Halls being pulled up to improve the cold water piping that serves the library and Harrelson Hall. Harwood said this will “take care of a lot of the library’s problems” and “really improve the cooling capacity.”

Residence Halls

Students living on campus have a great deal of residence hall renovation to deal with, along with the construction surrounding so many academic buildings.

“We’re renovating and improving first through student input, through IRC and Hall Councils; and second with an eye for providing space and conditions that meet students’ needs,” Susan Grant, director of University Housing, said.

Most of the recent renovations, she said, have been in response to student demands for air conditioning and the need for sprinkler systems.

“Syme, Gold, Welch and Alexander Halls will all have air conditioning by the ’06 fall semester,” she said.

She added that “all residence halls will be air conditioned by January 2007, and all residence halls will have sprinkler systems by the fall of 2007.”

All renovations are carefully planned according to campus construction schedules, she said, and added the University architect is “part of all of our planning committees.”

The tentative schedule for renovation of Wood Hall shows the amount of planning and accommodating that goes into such projects — one building will be renovated first semester and students will move in when it is complete so the second building can undergo the same sprinkler installation.

Some residence hall projects are on a smaller scale, such as the handrails being replaced on Bragaw Hall. According to Gay Perez, associate director of West Campus, adequate upkeep could not be provided because of the conditions of the original rails.

“The original railings had lead-based paint,” she said. “So all we could do was paint over them, but the rust continued to come through.”

After this project, she said, renovation projects for West Campus will be for the most part done.

Becton, Berry and Bagwell residence halls are also seeing the last of their immediate renovations for a while.

“Work on the Quad is about 98 or 99 percent done,” Tim Blair, associate director of East Campus, said. “Most of the things we’ve yet to do are related to the Commons Building,” he added, such as additions to the lobby and classroom areas.

All for the students

Planners want to stress, although construction can be inconvenient on a short-term scale, they really are trying to accommodate students as well as possible.

As much as students grumble, they seem to see this, too.

“They have done enough to let us function and get to class,” Andrew Brown, a freshman in mechanical engineering, said. “There are walkways everywhere through the construction, and maybe you have to take a ramp up instead of stairs, but we still get there.”

As long as students can see the benefits when the orange fencing finally comes down, they don’t mind a few small inconveniences.

“I’ve seen some things that have worked out really well — like the rerouting of traffic by the coliseum parking deck [Dunn Avenue] and the three-way stop on Dan Allen [Drive] and Sullivan [Drive],” Alan Youngblood, a junior in communication, said. “Those were things that needed to happen. It’s been inconvenient, but for the most part, everywhere they finish construction it’s all helped out.”