Campus Construction Update, April 22, 2024

Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management Nick Katers and Vice Provost of Academic Program Development and Strategic Initiatives Mike McKenzie join Dave Blanks in studio to discuss the renovation of Wey Hall.

 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

Dave Blanks: Hey folks, how's it going? I'm Dave Blanks from University Communications and this is the campus construction update. It's been a moment since I've been in studio, but it's good to be back here. And I'm joined by Nick Katers and Dr. Mike McKenzie. Mike is the... Hey guys, how's it going? I'll say hey to you first.

Nick Katers: Good morning.

Dr. McKenzie: Good, good to be here.

Nick Katers: And how are you?

Dave Blanks: I'm great. I'm doing well. So Mike McKenzie, the vice provost of Academic Program Development and Strategic Initiatives, also the designated Academic Affairs representative for the university's space committee, and the designated person from the provost leadership team who's been working with the associate vice chancellor, Mr. Nick Katers, our other guest on the academic needs related to the Wey Hall renovation. That's the topic of the day, is Wey Hall. Nick Katers, associate vice chancellor of Facilities Management. I'll just give a little information about Wey, and then we're going to address some questions about it. So Wey is the home of the Department of Art. It offers more than 100 course sections to approximately 1,400 students. The building's classrooms are used by University College for general education and for first-year seminar courses. I guess, Nick, when was Wey built? Wey's been there for a little while.

Nick Katers: Right, yeah, that's exactly why we're talking about this today. So Wey Hall was built in 1976. It was the oldest building that the university had that had never been touched by a holistic renovation, so it was approaching end of life on several critical systems to include the electrical and plumbing. The bathrooms were out of date. The elevator was probably not functional about half the time, and there was no fire suppression or sprinkler system in the building. Now there is a fully functional alarm system, but given all of those faults and the impending loss of some of those critical systems, we judged it was time to give Wey a full comprehensive renovation.

Dave Blanks: Right. Yeah. Well that makes sense. Yeah, 50 years is a long time and it's had smaller stuff done, like you said, but not, what was your terminology for it? Comprehensive.

Nick Katers: Comprehensive renovation, essentially where we gut the whole thing and start over.

Dave Blanks: So that's what we're getting into now and we will talk about that in a little bit, but I understand there have been recent safety concerns about Wey, so if y'all would like to speak to those, maybe?

Nick Katers: During spring break, we had to do some destructive testing of the floors between the first and second floor. So we chose to do that where the students weren't there. The contractor ended up drilling some bores through the concrete deck of the second floor, and a couple of pieces of concrete fell. One fell into an unoccupied office at the time, and some other smaller pieces fell onto the ceiling tiles above one of the first floor labs. At no time did any of the concrete fall through an occupied area.

Dave Blanks: Yeah. So that was a big concern for people and there were some different storylines going around out there, but thank you for clarifying that. So the renovation currently going on, when did it start?

Nick Katers: Well, we've been working on the planning for about two years now, but we really started last summer by closing down the second and third floors. We decided because of a lack of similar type lab and industrial arts classrooms to keep the first floor open for this academic year while we work to find alternative spaces. But for the most part, the renovations are pr