Thomas Jefferson believed that nobody could ever attain the rank of "senior" when it came to education, because the quest for knowledge was never complete. Well, the University took that theory and applied it to construction.
The McIntire School of Commerce is building a new home. Nestled behind Wilson Hall and blocking off Hospital Drive, its construction site has remained invisible to some, while proving an inconvenience to others. Although plans for the new building had been in the works for several years, actual work on the space started just a little over a year ago, when Varsity Hall was moved out of the way.
The new complex will have over 113,000 square feet of space and is projected to cost about $50 million to build, according to the Commerce School. The grand opening of the new building is currently scheduled for fall 2007, while the old Rouss Hall might be completed as soon as this coming fall semester.
I was able to get a tour of the site from Al Pinter, an engineer for Froehling and Robertson.
"It was 120 degrees down in that hole yesterday," Pinter said.
I took one small step toward the ledge. Suddenly, I was faced with a breathtaking 40-foot drop and a massive hollowed-out space below. The construction of the new complex was well under way.
Thinking Inside the Box
The foundation of the new building was about an entire acre in area, and it was even more impressive up close than from the Wilson overlook. The site was swarming with activity. Down in the hole, men climbed around on suspended steel. Through thegutted shell of Rouss Hall, dozens of workers could be seen creating new walls. The crane swung steel through the air to crews awaiting it on the highest beams.
Although the space was vast, the restrictions were equally daunting.
To the west, Rouss Hall had to be kept intact. In fact, points on the facade were regularly measured to keep track of any motion of the ground beneath. To the north, the historic Varsity Hall had to remain separate from the site. To the east, Hospital Drive and the hospital buildings bordered the site; to the south, Wilson Hall was the boundary.
It wasn't easy to deal with such a large open space, and a rainstorm is not a construction worker's best friend.
"The crane is like a lightning rod -- you don't want to be around when a severe storm starts," Nathan Wood, one of the crane operators, said.
Every time it rained, the workers would have to pump all the water out of the hole. On the other extreme, with no shade and limited air circulation, the temperature at the bottom could easily become 20 degrees above ground temperature. Add to this list the idea that all of the soil along this massive hole had to be kept from falling, and you'll get a good idea of the physical pressures of working on the site.
The office's estimate was that there are about 75 to 100 workers on the site at any given time during the day. Although Gilbane Building Company is in charge of managing the project overall, there are about 30 different subcontractors on the site, each of which were hired by Gilbane to complete a specific task.
Pinter works for Froehling and Robertson, which did the geotechnical inspections. Danny Hall worked with Piedmont Steel, where he supervised the Rebar, or the concrete reinforcement. Wood is employed by Century Concrete as a crane operator. There were about a dozen more companies with workers on the site of the new building and another dozen working on the existing Rouss Hall.
Past and Present
"Everybody works pretty well together," Wood said the other day when asked if all the contractors got along.
To illustrate his point, Pinter shouted to Milton, working the cement truck, "I don't like you!"
Milton shouted back, "I don't like you, either!"
They both laughed, and then went on to discuss the cement.
Many of the workers seemed to have a lot in common: long histories in the construction business, enthusiasm for the work they did and healthy outdoor tans.
"I started running the crane when I was 18 years old," Wood said, sporting a mustache and an impressive red neck.
Many of the workers on the site were Hispanic and haltingly bilingual. Pinter said that communication is a challenge at times, but everything always went smoothly in the end.
Many of the native English speakers had picked up some words of Spanish. I'd hear them say "¿Qué pasa?" and "¿Cómo estas?" as we walked around. Pinter said a lot of the Spanish-speaking workers are originally from Honduras.
"The other day, I taught a group of them how to say, 'You shorted me,'" Pinter said.
But the construction site isn't all fun and games. Hall mentioned that, back in the '70s, he worked on high-rises in Houston.
"I've seen a lot of men die," he said gravely.
In 1970, he lost two fingers in a sawing accident and had to have them reattached. He showed me his hand, but I couldn't tell anything was wrong until he pointed to one of his knuckles, which was bent without a joint.
"They couldn't save the knuckle," he said.
Hall said safety on sites had greatly improved since those days. In fact, everyone on the site had hard hats and safety glasses. The men climbing around on the steel appeared to be dripping with safety harnesses. The steel swinging around from the cranes was no joke, either.
"Some of that steel up there weighs 285 pounds per foot," Pinter said.
Trailer Treasure
Overall, the site was much more technical than I would have expected. Pinter and Aaron Rhoney, also an engineer from Froehling and Robertson, described at length the exhaustive measurements and tests they had to perform several times a week. They easily tossed around mind-boggling numbers: 101,000 tons of soil removed from the site, 30,000 cubic yards of concrete in the foundation and 990 tons of structural steel in the skeleton. They dealt with everything from the air in the concrete to the pressure of the steel to the bearing capacity of the soil.
The team's attention to detail was impressive, and the source of all this dedication was Gilbane's on-site office, truly a construction fan's dream. Although it looked like just another trailer from the outside, the inside revealed a slew of desks, offices, computers and much-appreciated air conditioning.
In the main room, the contractors pored over plans. Along the walls were slanting desks stacked with thick books of massive sheets of blueprints. In one group photo on the wall, some of the guys had drawn in handlebar mustaches in imitation of Ed Koppelman, the general superintendent.
Rebuilding
Inside Rouss Hall, the stress decreased noticeably. The Rouss we walked through was nothing like the old, anxious building I remembered. Gone were the narrow corridors and fixed wooden desks. Instead, wide open spaces greeted us, the partitions just beginning to hint at new classrooms.
Where the old offices of the Economics department once stood was now an enormous atrium, with sunlight pouring in through the east windows. The hallways between the old and new buildings were already in place, where the huge pane windows used to be. Workers walked among us, moving ladders, tools, boards and electrical cables.
One minute we were standing in the brand new basement bathrooms, plumbing poking out though the walls in expectation of sinks and toilets; the next minute, we were looking up at Rouss' original wooden boards from the 1890s, revealed behind a century's worth of plaster and concrete layers.
The contractors had been working hard to preserve the historical accuracy of the old building. The decorations on top of the frieze had been removed and reconstructed and the new slabs of granite in front of the building were going to be given ridges to match the original look.
Meanwhile, the new addition would have an extremely modern interior, with auditorium-style classrooms, three elevators and the latest electronic equipment. It was indeed a meeting of two different worlds.
The Commerce School has named this move the "Back to the Lawn" project, as the school was originally housed in Rouss Hall. The school's current home, Monroe Hall, will be handed over to the College of Arts and Sciences.
With new steel and walls going up by the day, the site is looking more and more like a promising third-year every day. The University, however, is going to remain a perpetual fourth-year: wise and weathered, but working on its construction degree until the end of time.
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