Campus Construction Update, March 28, 2025

This episode of Campus Construction Update features host Dave Blanks from University Communications in conversation with Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management Nick Katers. They discuss ongoing and upcoming construction projects on campus including the restoration of the campus bell tower chimes, the completion of the new women’s softball field and major infrastructure improvements such as road closures, new traffic lights and the continued development of the Innovation Campus. The episode provides insight into the challenges and progress of these projects highlighting efforts to enhance campus safety, sustainability and student facilities.

 

Transcript: 

Dave: Hey, folks, how's it going? I'm Dave Blanks from University Communications back with another Campus Construction Update video edition, and I'm joined by Mr. Nick Katers, hello, the Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management. Welcome back to the studio, Nick.

Nick: It's great to be here again.

Dave: I'm glad you're here. Well, summertime's not upon us yet, it's not even spring yet, but we're talking about some of the summer projects that we have on tap and some of the things that we've checked off our list, one of which you can hear if you've come to campus.

Nick: Absolutely.

Dave:

Yeah.

Nick: So the bells are back by popular demand. We have repaired the chimes in the steam tower/bell tower, so you can hear them every hour on the hour. And we'll start mixing it up as we go forward here a little bit, so it'll get a little bit more exciting.

Dave: What are we talking about, mixing it up?

Nick: Oh, we've played music before.

Dave: Okay.

Nick: So I think we can gauge the mood of the campus and really be appropriate. Some good wins on some of these sports teams, we could get out there.

Dave: Oh, sweet.

Nick: Maybe not a little AC/DC, but something-

Dave: Very appropriate for the bell tower. Exactly. Well, cool. Well, all right, so what happened to it? Why was it broken?

Nick: It kind of wore out over a number of years, so a pretty expensive sound system was in there. And just from weather and everything else that it was faced with, it broke down right before COVID. And then we just never got around to replacing it. But this year, thanks to some initiative from my team, we've got the bells working again.

Dave: I think our videographer, Malia, I don't know that she even knew that there were bells in the steam tower, so that's exciting. All right, well what else, Nick?

Nick: I also want to just point out that the new women's softball field out at the old high school site App 105 is complete. And that's been a huge goal of ours to get this done for the start of the softball season. And the first women's home softball game is this Friday, the 21st of March at 12 o'clock. So we'll be able to sort of inaugurate our new stadium and it looks fantastic.

Dave: It is beautiful.

Nick: Yes.

Dave: Yeah, it really is nice. And that's out on 105?

Nick: Yeah, 105 where the old high school location was.

Dave: Watauga High.

Nick: Right. It's also outdoor tennis, the track and field complex, and now adding softball. Pretty soon we'll be adding the indoor tennis facility as well.

Dave: Okay. Well, where does that go? It's kind of hard for this, but where is that in association?

Nick: Between the track and field area and the new softball field? It'll be attached to the new field house that we have there. So this will be six indoor tennis courts. It'll be a fantastic facility.

Dave: Sweet. Wow, that is wonderful.

Nick: Yes.

Dave: Well, cool. What else?

Nick: So you've probably noticed we've got a lot of construction going on on campus right now.

Dave: I noticed.

Nick: We're at 43 projects, $350 million worth of placement, and it causes a lot of chaos across campus. One of the areas that's been hit the hardest is the Peacock AppalCart Circle. So we've been trying to slide it around and move it around in order to make it as safe as possible. So I think we've finally settled on not moving it out of the Peacock lot, but sliding it closer to River Street. We've now restricted the traffic to one way and we're putting the bus shelter in the middle of a circle, so I think it'll be much more efficient. We won't have to have students with their backs up against the fence where they're up against the construction fence. So it'll stay this way for the rest of the semester and then we'll look at what we're going to do with it during the summer. But I anticipate until Peacock and Duncan are complete with their construction, we'll have to have that AppalCart stop there. And it'll be a while before those finish up. Duncan will finish up in the fall, the Peacock edition, which you can't even really visualize yet because it's just now starting to c