Crossroads of the Campus

I am thoroughly enjoying my new responsibility as Project Coordinator for the Lawrence University Campus Center. My fledgling journey has included new vocabulary words, learning about construction techniques and dealing with challenges. It has been an amazing ride.

Prior to taking on the project I thought I knew what excavating was all about! As a child I had read the story of Mike Mulligan and his wonderful steam shovel, Mary Ann. I grew up near a community hospital which kept spreading out, adding more wings. Our neighborhood troup played in these chasms until a chain link fence was constructed, protecting the site and us, but not before we had carved out hiding places and "forts." I realized, once we began work on the Campus Center, I knew nothing about excavating!

This process is incredible! The site is going to afford us fantastic views from all levels of the building. What a site to control and manage as Boldt's giant earth moving machines must carve exact measurements to enable us to create the structure which has been designed. We are removing 60,000 cubic yards of earth from the site. When we say the Campus Center is "nestled into the hill" we mean nestled! The earth being removed is being taken to two landfill areas north of Appleton. Most amazing is the precision with which these monster machines burrow through the soil producing the right dimensions for the next step in construction. The equipment operators are surgeons with hard hats! By the way, there are no more Mary Anns...the steam shovel has been replaced by the backhoe.

Our new building is very close to Sage Hall and indeed connects with Sage on both the surface and below. On the surface, the new structure will connect with the Sage Terrace and foot paths, while the Campus Center delivery link will be underground with a garden on top, at street level. Because our new building is so close to Sage "soil nailing" became a necessity to hold our 1917 building right where it has been for the past 90 years. What is soil nailing? I didn't have a clue. Soil nailing is a process which shores the earth around and under a building. This is accomplished by digging and probing under the building with an auger 65 feet long which bores into the soil at a downward angle. After the bore is complete, long reinforcing bars are inserted into the hole and then they are surrounded by concrete which is pumped into this opening. Once the rebars are cemented in place, a very large cap (much like a bolt) is placed on the exposed rebars before they are anchored to the soil with a layer of wire mesh covered with concrete. It is amazing and one of the expenses the Campus Center Planning Committee, Boldt Construction and the architects, Uihlein-Wilson and KSS, felt essential to maintain the foundations of Sage and the general topography of the slope down to the river.

Drilling caissons was another education venture for me and when next I log on, I'll describe this most creative technique. Lawrence is building a most incredible Campus Center!!!

The new campus Center continues to rise out of the ground. Legions of rebars have been tied and serve as additional support in the concrete, and that is just the beginning. In the past month there has been no shortage of noise, gigantic equipment, or progress. The project is only 3 days behind schedule, and we are making up the time. Delays were caused by the amount soil nailing required and the unexpected "treasures" we kept finding around Sage Hall, all in need of either repair or replacement!

The footbridge over Lawe Street has been deconstructed ("demolished" has been banished from our construction vocabulary). The removal of the 75,000-lb. main section of the old bridge was an impressive feat. An additional crane placed on Lawe Street lifted this section out of the bridge and lowered it onto a waiting flatbed. I was sure the weight of the concrete and the flatbed might send the truck rolling down into the Fox instead of proceeding up to College Avenue, but 4 x 4s placed under the tires prevented the truck from rolling backwards. It wasn't until the truck driver revved his engine and was ready to inch forward that the blocks were removed. The concrete piers for the footbridge have been removed and crushed for chat to lay under paths and the pedestrian mall. Pilings have been driven for the new bridge piers. We appreciate the indulgence of the professors lecturing at Wriston and the Delta- and Beta-House residents. It was noisy! Although the barricading of Lawe Street is an inconvenience to students heading to Alexander and to employees working down in the flats, our bridge construction and the Lawe Street bridge must be completed before expansion work begins on the College Avenue bridge in the summer of 2008.

I have written about safety in the past and continue to be amazed with Boldt's safety standards. The Boldt Company is definitely "proactive." All contractors and Boldt employees must read and sign off on the safety manual. Once a crew member signs the manual, a number is affixed to his hard hat confirming agreement to abide by the standards. Every day, the foreman reviews with his crew the risks and safety measures as well as the goals for that day. Boldt's Safety Department at the company headquarters makes weekly inspections on the site and directs the crews into a proactive mode for any potential risk situations. I was interested to learn that Boldt's standards often exceed OSHA standards. For example: OSHA requires men to "tie off" when they are 10' off the ground while Boldt requires a tie off at 6'. There is zero tolerance for any deviation from the "Employee Work Rules and Safety Manual."

The precision with which construction takes place is very impressive. Jeff Lamers, the Boldt safety guru and site supervisor, operates a "Total Station" which collects data, computes calculations, and completes the trigonometry necessary to affix exact locations for excavations and foundations. Outagamie County has a coordinate system which is tied to the United States system. The hubs established by this system are used as control points for calculations to be transfered to any building site by an infrared light, providing accurate details for the construction crews. Once measurements are set and concrete poured, dimensions are reshot to insure that the precise location has been met.

To readers of this blog: Our event marking the building of the Campus Center, a "Concrete Pour," will be held on October 18th at 10:30 am at the foot of Lawe Street. I hope each of you will attend and watch the massive crane deliver a bucket of concrete to our stage. We have a trolley to take you down to the site and return you to the top of the hill. There will be a fanfare to announce the "pour," favors to help relieve any stress you might be feeling and some treats! Join us for our celebratory "Concrete Pour."