Campus Construction Update: Week of June 28, 2010

Changing Bates: The construction projects at Roger Williams Hall, Garcelon Field and Hedge Hall are captured in this image. (Doug Hubley

Changing Bates: The construction projects at Roger Williams Hall, Garcelon Field, and Hedge Hall are captured in this image. (Doug Hubley/Bates College)

Update to the Update: Electricity to the Residential Village will be shut down for the morning starting at 7 a.m. Wednesday, July 7, as service is installed for the new Garcelon Field.

It’s been fascinating, if unsettling, to watch the reduction of Hedge and Roger Williams halls during these first months of their renovations. With half of Hedge’s roof the latest to vanish, the buildings have been stripped down to windowless, featureless, gutted shells more reminiscent of a war zone than a comfy college. Of course, new materials have been added to the buildings virtually since the beginning, albeit on the insides and mostly out of sight. And now, says project manager Paul Farnsworth, the reducing is done. Read more about the renovation of Hedge and Roger Williams halls.

How “green,” speaking environmentally and not chromatically, will the renovated Garcelon Field be? The answer’s mixed, says project manager Mike Gustin. It’s true that unlike the old grass field, the new FieldTurf playing surface will neither support wildlife nor inhale carbon dioxide. It’s also true that the artificial turf is made in part from petroleum products. But in other ways an artificial field has significant environmental advantages over grass. Read more about the Garcelon Field construction project.



Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions, reminiscences and comments about campus improvements. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley at this E-mail, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.