A construction project on the Cabot Intercultural Center that began in 2005 has been virtually completed and the Residential Quad, which was used during the project as a dumping ground by the construction company, is expected to be back to normal by Commencement, according to Director of University Facilities Robert Bertram.
"Certainly, for the lawn area to be done by Commencement - that's our goal," Bertram said.
New grass has been planted on the lawn in the Res Quad, and it is currently being hydro-seeded and fertilized. A fence has been erected to encircle the quad so that the new grass seed can grow in.
"The green stuff that you see is [the fertilizer that] they use in the hydro-seeding process," Bertram said. "The reason that it's fenced in is so that people don't get in it and walk and destroy the new grass seed that's down there."
Much of the grass on the Res Quad was destroyed when the construction company, Shawmut Design and Construction, set up shop there. Shawmut closed in a portion of the Res Quad behind Olin Center with chain-linked fencing coated with opaque green vinyl. This fenced-in section was deemed a hard-hat area.
"That area was used as a staging area for the contractors; in other words it's where they stored their materials," Bertram said. "They had construction trailers and they used it as a lay-down area for their materials. In doing that they destroyed the area of the lawn."
Shawmut completed the bulk of the project in January; the company then left campus with its trailers and materials, freeing up the Res Quad but leaving it dilapidated. The large, vinyl-coated fence that had encircled the hard-hat area was not removed until a few weeks ago, at which point Facilities began to work on reseeding the Res Quad. A different fence has now taken the place of the vinyl one.
"What was getting in the way was the winter," Deferred Maintenance Program Manager Rudi Pizzi said. "The ground was not sufficiently ready to regrade. We had to wait until we could get up there to regrade the area ... We had to wait until we could get it in the condition it is now."
It disappoints some students that the project has rendered most of the Res Quad unusable just as the weather is becoming pleasant. Also, they say, having the Res Quad fenced off makes walking around uphill less efficient.
"Besides the ... lack of aesthetic appeal, it's a nuisance if I'm going ... to visit friends in Miller or Wren - it takes longer," freshman Mike Birnkrant, a resident of Houston Hall, said. "And now that the weather's becoming nice, it's difficult to enjoy the approaching summer [on the Res Quad]."
But while the fencing was up, important construction was done on Cabot, Pizzi said.
"What was performed on the Cabot building was an exterior envelope project which restored the exterior of the building," he said. "The windows were replaced. The reason we did this project was that the building had a lot of leaks in the windows and around the windows and in the walls. We have corrected that problem."
Although the project was extensive, the building looks essentially the same as it did before the construction.
"We had to remove the entire exterior of the building in order to stop the moisture and the water leakage from getting in. We haven't really changed the look of the building other than [that] the windows are slightly darker than ... the original windows were."
This work was done in two phases. During each phase, two exterior walls were reworked; therefore, when both phases were completed, each of the four walls had been redone.
"One [phase] was done the summer before this and one was [started] this past summer," Pizzi said. "The project has been going on continuously since the beginning of the summer of '05 [and] was completed in December. We cleared out of there in ... January."
The only work that remains to be done is what Bertram called "a series of punch-list items."
"[That is] a list of things that were picked up after the project was finished, and the contractor has to come back and finish them. The contractor is currently coming back [and] doing punch-list items."
Bertram predicted that the punch-list work should be done within the next one to two months.
