Construction that has closed a major campus artery to pedestrian traffic since before the semester began could have been done weeks earlier, maintenance officials said, but for the catastrophic flooding that crippled the region early this summer.
So work will continue for at least another two weeks on the walkways of the $3.2 million renovation of the plaza deck, the area straddled by the New University Union, the Engineering Building and the Glenn G. Bartle Library. The project is about 60 percent complete, said Karen Fennie, a spokeswoman for Binghamton University’s Physical Facilities, and should be completely finished by November.
Improvements were needed because the area under the deck was leaking, but the project will also make the area look nicer, Fennie said.
Fennie downplayed the impact of detouring around construction, and the effects of associated noise on staffers working in the adjacent buildings. The demolition phase over the summer was especially noisy, a disturbance Fennie said staffers have coped well with.
“People have been really good about working around it,” she said. “With a project of that scope, there’s really no way for it not to be disruptive in some way.”
Large yellow signs announce detours around the work area, which spans from directly outside the New Union to the doors of Library North. Fennie said the taped-off doors to the library that face the Lecture Hall should be open to pedestrians by “mid-September.” Those doors were supposed to be open by the start of the semester.
Fennie said campus project managers are working with the contractor to minimize the impact.
“You can’t do work like this in a month and hope that nobody sees it. There’s going to be some pain,” she said, adding, “Improvement is the result of all that.”
The original plan called for the construction to stop in the winter and be completed in the summer of 2007, but plans were changed so construction would be complete by November. Massive summer flooding in New York’s Southern Tier, which caused millions of dollars in damage and took at least a dozen lives, led to minor delays in the overall time frame.
Still, Fennie said, “They’re going along at a good clip.”
The plaza deck project is a four-phase plan that included removal of asbestos and installation of a new waterproof membrane to quell dangerous leaking in the deck. Contracting firm Bette and Cring of Watertown, N.Y., is in charge of the project.
Funding for the $3.2 million project comes from a state capital fund allocated to the University every five years, which, according to Inside Binghamton University, currently runs from 2003-2008. BU’s total allocation for that time is $120 million.
Meanwhile, renovations to the Peace Quad are also underway. The small road that encircles the quad will be narrowed to reduce vehicular traffic in the area, making the walk safer for pedestrians and beautifying the area.
“It’s just an area where vehicles don’t have to be,” Fennie said.
The peace quad project will cost $600,000 and be “substantially complete” by Homecoming, Oct. 13-16, she said.
Dozens of other minor renovations took place over the summer, including replacing roofs, painting the entrances to campus and widespread window-washing. To read more about the various projects, visit the Physical Facilities Web site at facilities.binghamton.edu.