Construction is great, just great

The University is going through a transition period right now. We’re building a new chancellor’s home, receiving administrative upgrades, a golf course, an improved courtyard at the Atrium, ES King Village upgrades and have to deal with the big dig around Student Health. It’s so much construction that almost every campus path has cones and diggers on it.

Even Pullen Park will be closed until next spring because it needs a much needed face lift.

A drive down Hillsborough Street has proved so bumpy that even bank robbers won’t use getaway cars — they just run. There are so many pot holes and bumps on Hillsborough Street that it should be renamed Mogul Avenue. Unorganized traffic circles and digs mysteriously finding old street car rails show just how ridiculous this project was in the first place. Once all this construction is finished on Hillsborough Street I will have to seek psychological treatment from withdrawals because I will have nothing to gripe about — at least until they start it all up again in three years with some great, new addition.

Then Talley Student Center will undergo renovations. This $110 million student funded effort is supposed to bring a wow factor. It did — the price tag.

The original project specifications — the guidelines students rejected — claimed to add a large amount of additional square footage, but the plan has already been reduced by a reported 7,000 square feet. To make matters worse, Talley will surely require a large staging area which means reduced parking spaces, taped-off construction areas and sections closed off for renovation — in other words, reduced student areas.

Soon, the Atrium will have limited access for renovations. Project leaders are so excited about these changes that they have extended seating under Harrelson Hall so we can all watch — and freeze in the winter when the indoor eating spaces are still closed. I can hardly wait for that wonderful dining experience. Not only will the food sink to the bottom of my stomach, the building will sink with me.

Ah, the joy. Didn’t we just complete an Atrium project last year? Remember all those boarded path walkthroughs? Now all that gets to be reintroduced. Next time the Habitat for Humanity campaign comes to the Brickyard we should just leave the project so we will have somewhere to sit while the Atrium is under construction.

While WolfWheels was an excellent idea, planners forgot that with all the construction maneuvering around campus is not going to be very bike-friendly. The University Student Centers Board of Directors needs to show diligence in alternative solutions for the general student population. While alumni and students are appreciative of upgrades, the board should be mindful of alternative solutions for current students unable to use facilities under construction — nearly 30 percent of our campus.

Instead, our top candidates want to streamline our classwork interfaces or have us join them for dinner in one of our illustrious dining halls. Students want to have a great college experience, but with so much construction the experience is diminishing and causing some students to seek other universities. Students I spoke with said that they cannot concentrate with so many renovations. Most have concerns that when Talley construction begins there will be little or nothing to do on campus.

With this entire urban renewal one would think we were getting a new campus. Leaders provide hopeful comments like “just think how wonderful it will look when its finished,” only to have those road cones, barrels and barriers moved just another hundred feet to the left or right for the next muddy disaster. With all this construction, we should change our school mascot from the Wolf to a Barrel Monster. It might be a reflection of what students are really saying about N.C. State.