With their set opening dates less than a year away, the university”s two largest construction projects, the College of Education Building renovation and the Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC), are progressing on schedule.
Corinne Mantle-Bromley, dean of the College of Education, said education faculty and staff are on schedule to begin moving into the building between mid-June and mid-July and opening in August for the fall 2016 semester.
Mantle-Bromley said that six months ago, workers were focused on asbestos abatement. Since then, she said work has been focused on rebuilding. At this point, Mantle-Bromley said the building”s exterior has been completed and work is progressing on the interior. She said new windows have been added, plumbing has been completed, new walls have been put in, offices and classrooms have been partitioned, and workers are currently putting in carpeting and concrete flooring and beginning to paint the interior.
Mantle-Bromley said much of the redesigned space is intended to be more student-friendly, and various study spaces have been added during the remodel, including several small, enclosed rooms where students can have a private space to meet or study.
Mantle-Bromley said they have also added seating for students throughout the building where students can gather before or after class. The remodel will also add a large new tiered classroom, larger than any that existed in the building previously, to allow space for larger classes. She said there will be a seminar room specifically designed for distance teaching. The building will also be provided with brand new computers, video screens and wireless capabilities.
“It”s going to be a fabulous new state-of-the-art building,” Mantle-Bromley said. “I think it”s going to be a building where people hope that they get classes because it”ll be such a high-tech building and really student-friendly.”
Brian Johnson, assistant vice president for facilities, said construction on the IRIC, the university”s forthcoming collaborative research laboratory, is also progressing smoothly and on schedule.
Johnson said construction on the IRIC began around the same time as the education building, but will be completed a few months later, since it was a larger and more complex project involving an entirely new structure.
Johnson said the work during the last six months has largely focused on constructing the building”s glass, brick and steel exterior. The exterior of the building has been completed and work on constructing the interior is underway.
Johnson said adding walls, floors and ceilings as well as systems such as electrical wiring and plumbing will be the focus during the coming months as the building nears completion. Johnson said the interior of the building is designed to be flexible, with multi-use laboratories which can accommodate whatever type of research is being done by a given group.
“It”s meant to house collaborative research where rather than unit research or “X” working privately in his or her own lab, it”s set up to support teams of researchers that may have participants from many different schools of expertise in researching more complex problems and questions and working as a collaborative team,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the building is on schedule to be completed by its previously stated end date of fall 2016. Students will begin using the building starting with the spring 2017 semester.
Ryan Locke can be reached at [email protected]