So here we were contemplating the renovation of Hedge and Roger Williams halls and thinking, Steel, baby, steel! It’s all about the steel!

But that’s so two weeks ago. Because now it’s all about the wood.

Hedge, in particular, has blossomed forth with what looks like poetry in lumber: a dense and intricate roof framework that includes big new dormers overlooking the Historic Quad.

It will take another couple weeks to build that out, says project manager Paul Farnsworth, with plywood sheathing soon to appear on the dormer side and the flat center section, and joists going onto the addition, adjacent to Alumni Walk.

Down at ground level, the green construction fence is concealing cool developments involving the Hedge addition. Workers are placing metal studs that will support exterior sheathing, and — if I may lord it over you, yet again, that I have a 6-foot stepladder and you don’t — a peek over the fence will show you what the windows near the building entrance will look like.

In other words, the face of this new campus presence is starting to appear.

The Alumni Walk entrance to the completed addition will extend a premise central to the design of Alumni Walk: that this space should invite passers-through to stop, say “howdy” and set fer a spell. The Hedge entrance plaza will lie a couple feet below Alumni Walk, and the retaining walls between the two levels will make a nice spot to sit and chat.

Inside Hedge, the major steel work is done. Some fireproofing — the gray stuff you can see on the addition, even without a stepladder — has been sprayed on the steel. The MEP guys (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) have worked out where their various connections will run, and are installing hangers to support those ducts, wires and pipes.

Finally, says Farnsworth, “we have a whole ground floor inside now,” with the pouring of a concrete slab a couple weeks ago.

Across the worksite at Roger Williams Hall, it’s all about the . . . never mind. The big news is the second phase of the foundation for the addition that will face New Commons and Alumni Gym. That was poured the week of Sept. 27, and Farnsworth expected the wooden forms to come off this weekend.

Probably the week of Oct. 4, the next step will be taking off the roof — nearly all of it will be removed, excepting the bit toward Garcelon Field where the chimneys are.

Inside, Farnsworth says, “they’re attaching the wood floor joists to the steel, working from the top down.” As the steel takes the floor load, workers are removing the shoring that’s been holding the building up.

“And when they finally get to the ground floor and get the shoring out of the way, the plumbers and everyone else who does stuff underground can finally do the stuff underground.”

Read about the race to the goal line at Garcelon Field.

Box lunch: A delivery driver brings part of the inaugural food shipment into the new Commons on Feb. 7 (photo by Elizabeth Mitchell '10). Below: With the scissor lift not quite ready for use, the driver used portable ramps (Mitchell photo); Portland designer Angela Adams provided the upholstery for booths in the flex dining area; a staff-faculty tour group visits the main dining hall; the Arcade won't be so empty much longer; Milt's Emporium; zinc, glass and granite at the east entrance; at bottom, the new Commons seen from the Library Quad.

With the official opening just weeks away, the new dining Commons passed a milestone early on Feb. 7: the arrival of its first truckload of food.

The Performance Food Group semi backed into the Commons’ truck bay, on Central Avenue, shortly after dawn as an overnight snowfall tapered off. The load, said Dining Services director Christine Schwartz, was all nonperishables — everything from preserved artichoke hearts to crackers to pasta to canned tuna.

The truck bay’s scissor lift, installed to expedite the unloading of trucks, wasn’t working in time for the delivery, and the unloading crew used portable ramps instead. But the lift was ready to go by the end of the day, said project manager Paul Farnsworth. Its completion was delayed by the repouring of its concrete base to allow the lift to retract flush with floor level.

The Commons project passed another milestone a week before the food shipment. Forty or so Dining Services staff made their first working visit on Jan. 31, cleaning cooking equipment and training with more than a dozen appliance-maker representatives.

The session took place inside a plastic tent: The servery had been enclosed in plastic sheets the previous week — not, as we first suspected, to block Campus Construction Update’s inquiring gaze through the western windows, but instead to keep out the dust from construction in the adjacent dining hall.

The servery was unwrapped the evening of the 31st, at the end of a long day for a Dining Services staff that had to keep producing meals in the old Commons while training in the new.

Schwartz will have staff in the new facility henceforth. Cleaning is continuing, and Bates cooks are learning their new appliances and trialing recipes for things like dough.

For example, “we don’t know whether we want a 16-ounce ball to make a 14-piece pizza, or a 14 to make a 12, or a 15 to make a 14,” Schwartz said, losing Campus Construction Update altogether. “We want to mess with the weight of the dough ball to make sure what we’re getting.”

During the week of Feb. 11, Dining Services will be serving the results of its experiments in the new facility to students, staff and faculty volunteers.

Schwartz announced to the campus this week that the last board plan meal in Memorial Commons will be dinner on Feb. 15. From Feb. 16-20, students remaining on campus during the winter recess can dine during specific mealtimes in the Den, which will be closed to the general public. Starting Feb. 21, Dining Services will be serving in the new facility — and, because this is a “soft opening” with a limited menu, there will be no charge for meals Feb. 21-23.

When the dining hall opens officially for dinner on Feb. 24, please disregard any lack of visual harmony between the tables and chairs. The chairs Bates purchased for the facility have been delayed, Farnsworth reported, and in the meantime the vendors are loaning the College 414 chairs to complement 540 or so being retained from the old facility.

The vendors “stepped up to the plate and are getting us chairs so we’ll have something to sit on until the ones we asked for show up,” he said.

Movers will start bringing in furniture during the week of Feb. 11, with the dining hall pieces going in around the 15th.

Think about the last time you moved your household, and then multiply that effort by a factor of hundreds. Schwartz pointed out that it’s typical for an institutional dining service to hire a consulting company to help with a transition like this. But she and her staff eschewed that step, feeling that the experience would be invaluable.

“I asked my management staff, ‘This is what I’m thinking — can we do it?’ Because this is hugely labor-intensive,” she explained. “Especially from a management point of view, it eats a chunk of time.

“And they all agreed, and that’s what we’ve done, and we’re on track,” she said. “I don’t feel that a consultant could have done any better than we have done.

“This has been a great time for people to grow.”

The supply of construction news per se is dwindling (and with it the life expectancy of this series of Campus Construction Updates). Back in the milestone department, the city of Lewiston issued a partial occupancy permit the week of Jan. 28 — partial only because some carpeting remained unfinished on the second floor.

“They gave us the servery, the kitchen and the access to them,” Farnsworth said. “That’s what we needed in order to continue with cleaning and training.”

Woodworkers are still installing curved panels of maple veneer and other finishing touches in the fireplace lounge, which will likely be the last space completed in the building.

In addition, movable glass partitions for Milt’s Emporium, the flex dining area and a small dining room recently arrived and are being installed.

For areas apart from the kitchen and servery, general contractor Consigli Construction has brought in a cleaning company. The final inspection process — called “punch-listing” — is under way. And so is commissioning, in which a third party tests the technical systems.

Alumni Walk: Finally, though their concrete bases are hidden under the snow, there was news about the forthcoming installation of markers at both ends of the walk. Project architects at Sasaki Associates have approved the dark-gray granite for them and they will be positioned during the spring.

One bearing the words “Alumni Walk,” the other a tribute to Bates alumni, the markers will consist of stone chunks separated by gaps that, when viewed from above, reflect the pathways crossing Alumni Walk.

Farnsworth also held out some reassurance vis-à-vis an end to winter’s monotone. In the not-too-distant future, he reminded us, 140,000 scilla bulbs will be sending slender green shoots up through the grass and then producing a carpet of intense blue blossoms.

“You’re supposed to plant scillas late in the season,” Farnsworth explained, “and obviously we wanted to finish the Alumni Walk work so we put them in a little early.” That was a bit worrisome. But, he said, when they’ve had to peel back the turf for walk repairs, “they’ve started to sprout. They’re alive.”

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to this Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Visit the index of earlier Campus Construction Updates.

If the schedule holds, in about 10 weeks Dining Services will serve the first meals in the new Commons.

“It’s going to be a fabulous facility,” Dining Services director Christine Schwartz told Campus Construction Update during a conversation about the transition from old to new. Her office, just inside from the loading dock at the old Memorial Commons, was a jumble of cardboard boxes packed, stacked and labeled for the move.

“I can’t tell you what an experience it is to have something start on paper” — she waved a hand at a tall carton bulging with rolled-up building plans — “see the outline of it in the foundation, and then see the walls go up, and then the equipment goes in.

“To see it actually come to life and start to breathe is a once-in-a lifetime experience.”

While some moving could begin as early as Dec. 26, Dining Services expects to take possession of the facility in late January, with training slated for two or three weeks thereafter.

The bulk of the move comes next, from Feb. 15 through 17, the beginning of Bates’ winter recess. Once the health inspector has looked things over, Schwartz anticipates that by Feb. 20 or so the facility will be ready to dish up. It will be a “soft opening,” with most students and many staff and faculty away.

“We’ll be inviting people as we — as I like to say — burn and learn,” she said. “So it’ll give us time to amp up and give everybody some level of comfort before we go to the full board plan.”

Show time is slated for the evening of Sunday, Feb. 24, as students return from break and take their first board plan meal in the new Commons.

How much stuff will Dining Services bring from Memorial Commons to the new one? A lot. Tables and chairs are now being refurbished for use in the new dining hall. Tableware, flatware and serving pieces, all the catering equipment and a lot of office furniture will also go over.

With one major exception, however, the current kitchen equipment has outlived its usefulness to Bates. The equipment is still serviceable, Schwartz noted, just not at the high level of production needed in the new facility. She’s seeking new homes for the old appliances.

The one item in the culinary arsenal that will go to the new facility is the 2-year-old dishwashing machine. To transfer it, Bates will have to remove an interior wall and a window to the outdoors, lower the machine from the second floor of old Commons by crane, haul it to the new building and wall it in at its new location. The move will take about a day, plus disconnecting and reconnecting.

For Schwartz and her staff, the single biggest issue in the transition is training. That’s partly because of new technology. But also, Schwartz noted, coming with the new space is “a whole different approach to what we’re doing.”

In the present Commons, a large proportion of the staff is tasked with serving food that has been prepared behind the scenes. In the new Commons, most cooking will be done to order, in view of the diners. Because of that shift, Schwartz explained, “we’ve had to change the profile of our dining staff, so we have more production people than service people.”

Restructuring the organization has been effected through attrition and retraining during the past 18 months, she said. “I actually sat down with every employee and asked, ‘What is it you want to be doing?’ So they got, for the most part, to pick what they wanted to do, and I’d say 99 times out of 100 it was a good fit.”

For instance, several people on the service side wanted to move into production. “They’re really, really excited about this, because not only do they get to keep the interaction with students, but then they get to do something with food. It’s been a great growth experience for the staff.”

Schwartz emphasized that her staff numbers will not increase, with the payroll remaining steady at 96 benefited employees and 50 or so on-call workers.

In the next edition of Campus Construction Update, Schwartz reveals her favorite new pieces of kitchen gear and explains what the new Commons experience will be like for diners. Watch for it the week of Jan. 7, 2008.

Meanwhile, on the construction front, project manager Paul Farnsworth reported that during the week of Dec. 10 the long-awaited skylight was installed in the ventilation monitor — that big box on the Commons roof. In the coming days, the monitor will be sheathed in purely cosmetic louvers. The scaffolding that’s been up there for months will finally disappear and the last of the roofing slate will be laid.

Inside the building, a couple of steps that we reported on previously are nearly complete. The room where the Commons’ computer equipment will live has been finished, so that gear will soon be installed and the building hooked into the campus computer net.

In the kitchen and servery areas, the ceiling grid has been hung, a procession of inspectors have made their inspections, and the ceiling tiles are about to go in. In that same part of the facility, Farnsworth added, “our first batch of countertops showed up on Dec. 8,” with another shipment due by the 14th.

In the dining area, the ceiling made of recycled wood slats has been punch-listed — that is, inspected for defects — the overhead lights are all in place, and gray zinc trim is being installed around the windows.

Speaking of zinc, we asked about the green membrane underlying the zinc that’s being applied around the west entrance. Because wood and zinc expand and contract at different rates, that isolating barrier keeps them from damaging each other when the temperature changes, Farnsworth explained.

And when will the ugly plywood doors go away and the proper exterior doors be hung? Pretty soon, Farnsworth said. “We’re holding off with those doors because that’s the way we’re taking out the larger lifts” — the scissor lifts that allow workers to reach high ceilings and walls.

General contractor Consigli Construction “has put out an edict for the next couple of weeks — ‘You’ve got to get your work done, because we’re going to be closing up the front door and the lifts have to go.’ ”

Readers write: Monthe Kofos ’11 wondered what the many small, shiny projections on the new Commons roof are. They’re snow guards, Farnsworth responded.

“These are intended to hold the snow pack and prevent it from sliding off as one large block of snow, as happens on Underhill and Merrill.”

Kofos also asked if the fireplace lounge will have a piano, as is indicated by an artist’s rendering of the space. No piano has been selected yet for the lounge, Farnsworth replied.

An image in the previous update, which depicted the three major Alumni Walk pathways that approach the Commons, evoked a question from other readers: Why does the middle pathway stop short? Answer: The grassy expanse between that path and the building will accommodate the large tents that Bates erects for special occasions.

Alumni Walk: Finally, is the Outing Club camping out under two blue plastic tarps on Alumni Walk? Nope. Those tarps are protecting the concrete bases for two granite installations, of which one will display the college’s name and the other will honor generations of Bates alums. The concrete needs to be kept warm while it cures.

Farnsworth explained that a search is continuing for the appropriate granite for the installations, and they will be completed as soon as that stone is found.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process?What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update returns the week of Jan. 7, 2008. If you just can’t do without until then, visit the index of earlier Campus Construction Updates.

Just a few months ago, new construction projects at Bates were transforming a swath of campus that extended from Mount David to Merrill Gym.

Now, like a Hollywood crane shot where the camera swoops down from lofty to intimate, the focus of construction at Bates is closing in on the interior of the new dining Commons.

Let’s recap. In mid-August, the new student housing at 280 College St. opened for occupancy. The work that was awaiting completion at that point is now all but done, project manager Pam Wichroski said. What’s left, besides a few finishing touches on the exterior, is a final sweep of inspecting and correcting details.

That “punch-list” process should be polished off during the Christmas break, Wichroski said. And that, for all practical purposes, will be that.

Because general contractor H.E. Callahan of Auburn has warranted the project for a year, it’s not impossible that we’ll see workers on the premises again after the current punch list is done, Wichroski noted.

“Of course, while you’re using the building you might notice different things — you might find that you’ve got a bad light fixture because the bulb keeps going out, or something like that. That’s just pretty standard. So it’s just keeping up with all of those things for the rest of the warranty, and then it will truly be a Bates-maintained building.”

Near completion, too, is Alumni Walk. Linking College Street with Central Avenue and 280 College with the new dining Commons, that project occupies two and a half central acres of campus. The area’s importance to cross-campus traffic became abundantly clear during the summer when general contractor Consigli Construction closed off large sections of it.

But the last construction fences have come down and the chore list has gotten short. The installation the other week of a handrail along the concrete steps between Lane and Pettengill halls completed one of the Walk’s last prominent pieces, the new amphitheater facing Lake Andrews.

All that remains for major work on the walk is the placement of two granite installations. One of them, 12 feet long and bearing the words “Bates College,” will be set at the College Street entrance of the walk. Near Pettengill Hall, a 20-foot piece will recognize the role played by Jack ’59 and Beverly Keigwin P’86 in making the walk possible as a tribute to generations of Bates alumni.

Each installation will consist of several two-foot-high chunks of cut black granite lined up on a concrete base. Diagonal gaps between the chunks will mirror the pathways that crisscross Alumni Walk. The foundations have been started, Farnsworth said, and the granite will be put in place in the weeks to come.

In other landscaping news, the iron Class of 1910 Gate has been reassembled on its new brick piers. The gate now marks the south access to a plaza around the entrance to the new Commons.

Near the gate, serviceberry trees have been planted in the new viewing garden that will soothe any sore eyes that happen to peer from the Commons’ southern windows. A layer of smooth black stones, identical to the ones covering certain roofs visible from inside Commons, will top the crushed rock now blanketing the garden.

Finally, the new Commons itself: With only a few sheets of window glass yet to be installed, the last major tasks on the exterior are the completion of the ventilation monitor at the building’s peak, and then the installation of slate roofing that’s been waiting for the monitor.

Glass for the monitor’s skylight has arrived and a crane will come in to hang it next week, essentially completing that long-awaited step, Farnsworth said. The roofing should be done by Christmas.

As noted, most of the action nowadays is inside the Commons. The process of systems-testing called “commissioning” has begun, with local architecture firm Harriman Associates as agent. Farnsworth noted that there are 84 line items on the commissioning list, with some line items covering many examples of a given item. Faucets, for example.

A task scheduled for completion this week will simplify the commissioning. Farnsworth expected that the building’s connections to the campus computer net would be established, enabling some systems to be tested remotely.

“We need that connection for a number of things,” Farnsworth said. “For commissioning the security system, and then the building automation system which controls the heat. It’s a lot easier to commission all that equipment over the network.”

Farnsworth got us going when he mentioned that ceiling installers were “flooding” the kitchen and servery areas. Nope, not with water. Instead, flooding is the verb the pros use where the rest of us might say that we have hung a big bunch of ceiling tiles. Farnsworth added that this particular expanse of ceiling gets an attractive double-layer treatment, with black tiles suspended above a white grid.

He estimated that three-quarters of the non-portable kitchen equipment was in place. The big push now, he explained, was on countertops and cabinetry.

Elsewhere in the building, as Farnsworth explained, “they’re into finishes.”

Painting is moving apace, elegant black masabi granite countertops have been installed in the meeting rooms, and granite wall veneers are nearly all in place.

In the fireplace lounge, whose windows are nearly done, the granite hearth and gas-burning fireplace are installed. Occupants of the lounge will be able to turn on the fire with a timer system, Farnsworth explained. “That way we don’t have to worry about someone forgetting to shut it off.”

Farnsworth went on to paint an alluring picture of this signature space: A walnut-composite floor, maple wall paneling, comfy furniture and floor lamps, and bookshelves that can be moved to serve as “walls” for hanging art.

Finally, we’ll return to the great outdoors and the new parking lot just opened behind Merrill Gym. With the city’s winter parking restrictions taking effect Dec. 1, the lot’s 70 spaces have come into service just in the nick of time.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process?What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: See an index of earlier Campus Construction Updates. We aim to publish every other week.

There’s a scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where Clarence, guardian angel to James Stewart’s character George Bailey, comments that in Heaven, nobody uses money.

Bailey retorts, “Comes in pretty handy down here, bub.”

A parallel may apply to a Bates construction project that has its own holiday connection. The project isn’t inspiring like Alumni Walk, magnificent like the new dining Commons or heartwarming like the new student housing. But a new parking lot behind Merrill Gymnasium that should open around Thanksgiving will come in handy, bub, easing the squeeze that Bates motorists have felt the past six months.

An asphalt base coat for the 70-vehicle lot was laid Oct. 19. Between now and the holiday, a path will be paved from the new lot to the existing walkway between the athletics complex and Central Avenue. Merrill’s existing back doors will open onto new concrete pads and the parking area.

The parking crunch began with the removal of spaces behind the old tennis courts on Central Avenue for the new Commons, and along Andrews Road for Alumni Walk. But Paul Farnsworth, manager of those projects, reported that the College will ultimately realize a net gain of 17 spaces.

He added that three existing handicapped spaces near Alumni Walk are being widened and restriped to meet current standards, and four new spaces are being added next to them. Six spaces will be created next to the new Commons for service vehicles.

Alumni Walk: If 90 percent of life is just showing up, as Woody Allen reputedly said, 90 percent of construction work seems to be paving.

The major paving for Bates’ new east-west connector was finished on Oct. 22, Farnsworth reported. That includes the many asphalt paths that crisscross the walk and a larger blacktop expanse extending North Bardwell Street — better known as the parking area for Smith and Adams halls — across the Alumni Walk corridor.

At the same time, the service road behind Chase Hall, from Campus Avenue to Alumni Gym, got its long-awaited final coat of blacktop.

Also on the asphalt front, preparations are under way for a base coat at the foot of the new amphitheater, situated between Pettengill and Lane Halls and facing Lake Andrews. That base will be topped with an apron of the same cut and polished asphalt blocks used on the main Alumni Walk paths. Farnsworth noted that the concrete risers and the steps for the amphitheater are done.

Finally in Alumni Walk news, installation of LED lights in the concrete benches has begun, and the job should be finished next week.

New dining Commons: History of sorts was made during the Bates-Middlebury football game Oct. 20 when Panther kicker Jack Britton’s extra point sailed through the uprights and smack into the huge windows on the Garcelon Field side of Commons.

The first pigskin-glass contact in Commons history “made quite a thud,” said Jay Burns, editor of Bates Magazine. “You could see the glass vibrate.” The incident didn’t faze Farnsworth, also in attendance, who said that the contractor has no concerns about the glass breaking.

Just in case, though, Farnsworth had already ordered a net to catch high-flying pigskins.

In fact, most of the window glass has been installed, with the west entrance and the fireplace lounge among major features still unglazed. Farnsworth added that the skylight for the ventilation monitor — that big box on top of the roof — should be shipped by the end of the month. Once that’s installed, the last patch of slate roofing, on the south side, can be laid.

All of this work will make the shell of the building essentially weathertight.

Speaking of roofs and weathertightness, Farnsworth said that air handlers had been mounted on the roof over the kitchen on Oct. 19. That equipment won’t be operating for some time but at least, as Farnsworth pointed out, “it seals the roof openings.”

Meanwhile, masons have made good progress laying pavers around the new Commons. The main entrance approaches are being covered with gray granite blocks similar to those on the building walls, while walkways and other areas get the the same kind of asphalt blocks used on Alumni Walk.

Also echoing Alumni Walk is a sitting area along the north side of the building at the entrance to the Emporium, the facility’s “convenience store.” Here, along with a table and wooden benches, you’ll eventually find polished concrete benches resembling the risers in the amphitheater.

Inside Commons, the recycled wood cladding on the dining hall ceiling is about half completed. And the paving — er, tiling — of the servery walls is in progress. There was a delay there, Farnsworth noted, because the tiles originally ordered from Italy were held up in shipping. They’ve been supplanted by tiles from Texas that arrived on the 20th.

Finally, in our effort to leave no piece of paving news unreported, bub, Farnsworth said that concrete for the floor of the loading dock will be poured next week. The concrete is formulated to resist the corrosive effects of road salt.

Readers write: Shirley Serrao ’11 wanted to know what provisions would be made for playing music in the new Commons. “The facility has an integrated speaker system,” Farnsworth replied. “The rooms are divided into zones that can be controlled independently for music or public address.

“The fireplace lounge is also equipped with its own audio amplifier, microphone and speaker system so you could DJ an iPod performance or amplify a small string quartet.”

Serrao also wrote: “I can’t wait for the new Commons to open; we’re going to have another fireplace!”

New student housing: Serrao is likely referring to the fireplace in 280 College St. — specifically, in that signature gathering place called Frank’s Lounge. Made possible by a gift from Bruce Stangle ’70 and Emily Siegel Stangle ’72, the lounge named in honor of Bruce’s father, Frank J. Stangle, will be dedicated during a Trustee luncheon on Oct. 26.

Meanwhile, about 10 workers, give or take a few according to the day, are still on the job at 280 College St. Some are continuing to work on exterior trim. Others are pursuing the building’s commissioning, a process in which a third party — local architecture firm Harriman Associates — is testing the building’s nonstructural systems.

We were interested to learn from project manager Pam Wichroski that the commissioning process is now into the automated controls for systems such as heat, plumbing and some of the electrical.

She explained that computers in Physical Plant headquarters, two blocks away at the Cutten Maintenance Center, are being tied into the residence’s computers so that these systems can be monitored and even remotely controlled.

“For example, if there’s no hot water in a bathroom, we can take a look and make sure that the pumps are running, water heaters are running, what the temperatures are set at,” Wichroski said. “And we can adjust that remotely.” Physical Plant staff are being trained to use these systems now.

The same network of sensors, controls and computers will feed information to the “dashboard” monitor in the building’s center core enabling residents to monitor their resource use. This display, slated to go into service soon, will initially register the usage for the whole building. Later it will be modified to show data for different sections of the building.

As for the exterior trim work around glass-walled areas that has been going on all autumn, the contractor has had issues in making the window system airtight, Wichroski explained. The College has brought in a third party to test and monitor this work, in a parallel to the third-party commissioning process mentioned above.

“We’re making sure it’s absolutely right before the final finish goes on,” she said. Wichroski did not say “bub,” but we could hear it in her tone.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you, bub. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

The new dining Commons should be open for business when students return from break on Feb. 25, project manager Paul Farnsworth reported. And it’s hoped that construction work will be complete about a month prior to the opening.

While there’s still plenty to do on the 60,000-square-foot facility, recent progress has been “amazing,” Farnsworth said. “You walk through and notice things, and it’s like, ‘When did they do that?’ “

At this point, he explained, a kind of snowball effect is prevailing. The more things that are finished, the more things can be finished.

“If there’s something they can do without being in the way of something else, it’s being done,” he said.

So, for instance, the wiring for the public address system is in place. Sprinkler heads are being installed. Even shelf brackets in custodial closets are being hung.

But the biggest news may be that meetings have begun in anticipation of the building’s commissioning — the process of bringing in a third party to test mechanical, electrical and other systems. As with the new student housing, the local architecture firm Harriman Associates will perform the commissioning.

Other big news? Heat from the campus steam plant was turned on in the new Commons during the last week of October. “It was a big milestone,” Farnsworth said. And on Nov. 5, the emergency generator’s diesel engine was tested. That was significant for the entire campus, since a set of electric pumps that return “used steam” — condensate — to the central steam plant is located in Commons. If electricity goes out during a winter storm, at least there will be heat.

The decorative recycled-wood ceiling veneer over the main dining area is complete, although, as Farnsworth reminded us, “there’s a difference between complete and accepted.” Let the tweaking begin. Light fixtures in that area are being installed, too. “They hang down, so it adds depth to the ceiling,” Farnsworth said. “It looks nicer” than the unadorned wood strips.

Nearby, the wall tiles in the servery are virtually finished. Black granite veneer has gone up in a number of interior sites, from the shaft leading up to the central skylight to the space around the grand staircase near the dining hall. And construction of that staircase itself is well along.

Meanwhile, Farnsworth expects delivery of only two more tractor-trailer loads of kitchen equipment, both this month.

High atop the building, the first section of the central skylight should be installed in the boxlike ventilation monitor by Nov. 12, Farnsworth said. Most of the building’s windows are in place, with the fireplace lounge glass being the major section still outstanding.

Meanwhile, at ground level, the construction fence is gone from the worksite bordering Garcelon Field, and sod has been laid there.

Around the corner near the east entrance, trademark Alumni Walk paper birches have been planted. Sitting nearby, their roots bundled up, waited to be planted, are several serviceberry trees (aka juneberry, shadblow, shadbush or Amelanchier canadensis). Stored near Central Avenue now, they’ll actually be planted in a new garden near the Library Quad, visible from the dining hall.

The serviceberries are highly decorative trees that leaf out early in spring and make an attractive white fuzz in the process. They also produce edible berries in the summer (if you’re just too hungry to struggle onward to the Commons) and showy foliage in autumn.

The trees will be set in a field of smooth, small black stones, echoing the dark gray granite that is such a dominant motif, and a new one to Bates, on the Commons and Alumni Walk. Similar small stones, Farnsworth noted, will be laid on the small awning-like roofs around the building. The idea is to mask gunk that accumulates in such areas over time and that would be visible from higher windows.

Readers write: Helon Hoffer ’08 had a question about the asphalt pavers on the wider of Alumni Walk’s two main paths. This 20-foot-wide lane is divided lengthwise into two patterns. “Why is it split like this?” Helon asked.

Farnsworth responded: “The concept for Alumni Walk was two 10-foot-wide parallel paths. However, emergency vehicle access required us to make one path 20 feet wide. So we kept the concept of the two 10-foot paths through the pattern in the paving. Half of the 20-foot path is paved the same way as the 10-foot path.”

Alumni Walk: Although it’s virtually complete, the last section of the walk, stretching 240 feet westward from the new Commons, remains fenced in to protect the new grass. (New grass elsewhere in the vicinity hasn’t been so lucky, as protective string cordons have been yanked out and the emerging sprouts trampled in spots.) The fence will be removed “before winter really hits,” Farnsworth said.

So there’s at least one reason to look forward to winter.

Within the fence, a wide lane of asphalt pavers extends the Commons entrance plaza southward to join, via the reconstructed 1910 Gate, the Alumni Gym service road.

Finally, the amphitheater occupying the banking between Lane and Pettengill halls is about done. All that remains is some finish paving around the plaza at its base, the placement of grass around the big concrete risers, and the installation of a handrail along the staircase.

Those steps, which go from the Lake Andrews parking lot to Alumni Walk, will be electrically heated to keep snow and ice from building up. “With the numbers of people that use that and the length of a snowstorm, you could have someone there sweeping them continuously,” Farnsworth explained. “It just made sense from a safety standpoint to melt the snow off.”

New student housing: Project manager Pam Wichroski laughed when Campus Construction Update, feeling an emotion like childhood impatience on Christmas morning, asked: “Are we done yet?”

Not quite, she replied. But we’re getting there. The exterior wood ceilings underneath the bridges — midair breezeways that link the building’s three sections — are about finished. But the ceiling sections that abut the buildings still need to be closed up with an insulating exterior coating resembling plaster.

In addition, Wichroski said, crews will be using an elaborate vibrating vacuum system to remove hardened dust deposits from the air ducts — stuff that regular vacuuming won’t touch.

Beyond that, and details like signage and pavement stripes, much of what remains is what insiders call “punch-list items” — details that were revealed, by the punch-list inspection, to need more work. For example, Wichroski offered tasks like “touching up drywall and paint, cleaning paint off things that paint doesn’t belong on, touching up seams in carpeting that we didn’t think were all that great. Minor things.”

“We’re moving from the east flanker,” or wing, “doing the punch-list, and then we’ll go to the west flanker,” she said. “Each side’s taken about two weeks to do. And then there’s the center building — a lot of that work, we’re going to try to hold off on until Christmas break. We don’t want them doing any work while finals are going on.”

And after that? “The intent is that this phase is final. So they’re going through and then we’ll take a look at it again, and hopefully this time through that’s it. They’re done.”

Stay tuned, and have a happy Thanksgiving. Campus Construction Update returns the week of Nov. 26.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you, bub. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: See an index of earlier Campus Construction Updates. We aim to publish every other week.

On Oct. 8, the outdoor gas grill at 280 College St., the new student residence, made its barbecue debut.

Residence coordinators Jenn Linton ’08 and Matt Lopez ’08 hosted an inaugural cookout that had been delayed a couple weeks while shipping damage to the grill was fixed.

The gathering was a hit. “The line for food was long — people were excited to eat the first barbecue from the new grill,” said Jessica Mellen, the building’s resident director. “About 100 people attended at one point or another.”

The menu was Dining Services’ standard “Late Night Barbecue” package, including dogs, burgers (meat and veggie), chips, salads and cookies.

The shiny Viking grill, Mellen added, “is easy to use — just turn on the gas and push the ignite button.”

Turning on gas, in fact, became kind of a theme for the week. A few days after the cookout, Mellen and Physical Plant staff were trained to use a gas fireplace that is a defining feature in Frank’s Lounge at 280 College, aka the Stangle Lounge.

The placement of a chimney cap on Oct. 9 was the finishing touch for the fireplace. A second fireplace lounge will be featured in the new Commons, bookending the cross-campus Alumni Walk with those cozy amenities.

“They’re especially appropriate in a college setting, where students are making the transition from their bedroom at home to a new environment where the college is home,” noted Steve Erwin, the principal at the architecture firm Shepley Bulfinch who led the 280 College project.

Frank’s Lounge received its furniture, a mix of café furniture, colorful plush pieces and low tables for floor-sitting studiers, the first week of October.

In other 280 College news, the commissioning process — the third-party testing of building systems — is nearly complete. The major outstanding item is the heating system, which will likely be tested early the week of Oct. 15, after the campuswide steam heating plant goes into action.

Finally, we erred the other week in reporting the expected completion date for exterior trim. Pam Wichroski, project manager, said that the trim should be finished by early November, a month later than stated here.

Much of the trim will appear around the windows that form the walls of the living rooms on each floor. It’s fussy work that entails installing an air barrier prior to the actual metal trim, Wichroski explained. Similar trim is being applied on the “bridges,” the glass skyways that link the building’s three sections; and on the outside of Frank’s Lounge.

New dining Commons: From time to time, the colors and shapes of building construction provide unexpected bits of beauty.

During a tour of the Commons on Sept. 26, for instance, we were charmed by the blue floor treatment that workers were applying in the servery. It bounced rich blue light throughout the space. As project manager Paul Farnsworth explained, the treatment will keep the floor tiling from fracturing when temperatures change, since the tiles and concrete subfloor have different expansion rates.

We also liked to look 44 feet upward to the ceiling of the main dining hall. Workers from the local millwork company Selmore had started nailing up lengths of recycled wood that will sheathe the ceiling, but the uncovered portions showed long black mounting strips in a captivating pattern.

The tour also revealed some of the gear and design elements needed to feed a campus full of people. For instance, we were surprised to learn that one room will be dedicated solely to bulk breakfast cereal storage. Another one will house canisters of soft-drink syrups that will be combined with soda water and piped through plastic tubing some distance to their dispensers.

And we marveled at the giant stainless steel “tip kettles,” used for boiling foods like pasta, that can be swiveled on bearings to dump out their contents.

In fact, much of the kitchen equipment is on the work site, albeit not always in its final location. “They’ve got pieces stored all over the place,” Farnsworth said in a subsequent interview.

By the week of Oct. 8, all of the building’s toilets — the water-saving dual-flush kind often seen in Europe — were in place. The servery floor tiles were all but complete, and masons had begun placing the black granite on the walls around the grand staircase at the north side of the building. And the dining hall ceiling, Farnsworth estimated, was 20 percent complete. The 10 Selmore carpenters, he said, “are just hitting their stride now.”

Farnsworth also reported that all the window glass for Commons had been delivered. Maine glass subcontractor Oakes & Parkhurst, he said, planned a full-court press on Oct. 11, hoping to make good progress prior to the following day’s predicted rainstorm.

Finally, the east side of the building looks much dressier thanks to sod and five sugar maples planted along Central Avenue late last week.

Alumni Walk: Reader Jason Buxbaum ’08 had an Alumni Walk question. “I was wondering why they laid down sod in some places but planted grass seed elsewhere,” Buxbaum wrote.

It’s about money, replied Farnsworth. Hydroseeding — the spraying of a slurry of grass seed, fertilizer, binding agents and lifelike (or not) green dye — costs less than sod. But the grass in sod sets root faster. So where the College wanted to have grass well established by next spring, landscapers laid sod. Where that wasn’t so important, mostly on bankings south of the walk, they sprayed.

Speaking of landscapers, this month they finished planting the 140,000 scilla bulbs in between the walkways — “minus a few that the squirrels got,” Farnsworth said.

The crew of three or four landscapers ended up lying on the ground to stick them in, he explained. If it had been Campus Construction Update doing that job, we would have had to lie on on the ground for some hours afterward, too.

In recent days landscapers have spread and graded loam at the east end of Alumni Walk, near the new Commons and enclosed by construction fencing. There are three walkways paved with asphalt blocks in that area, and the middle lane is pretty much done. Paving the outboard lanes, which will run right up to the building, can’t be finished until contractor Consigli Construction is done moving heavy equipment around.

“In two weeks we hope to have all the grading around the building complete,” Farnsworth said. An area between Pettengill and Smith halls that had been badly beaten up over the last year of construction, he added, has been loamed, graded and its paths repaved.

Great strides have been made, meanwhile, on the amphitheater between Pettengill and Lane halls. The concrete risers for seating have been set and are being backfilled, and pouring of the stairs on the Lane side is about half done.

All the pole lighting is in place on the walk, as are the 10 pairs of concrete benches. Farnsworth pointed out that to set the benches, which are cast-concrete cuboids — elongated cubes — workers lowered them with straps onto blocks of dry ice. The dry ice provided temporary clearance to remove the straps and then evaporated, letting the blocks settle into place.

The LED light strips on the benches should be hooked up soon. Those lights will be something to see on a snowy or foggy evening, on your way to a fireplace lounge.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

An afternoon thunderstorm on Sept. 27 occasioned an Alumni Walk first: emergency vehicles entering in response to a campus alarm.

Although there was no fire, lightning caused a power surge in the fire detection system, frying a computer chip and setting off an alarm in Hathorn Hall. Two Lewiston Fire Department units responded to the call sent out by the system, according to Greg LaCroix, lead electrician for Physical Plant.

The following day saw a different kind of thrill on the walk as it was opened to pedestrian traffic between Pettengill Hall and North Bardwell Street — the former city thoroughfare that is now the parking area for Smith and Adams halls.

The opening was timed for Parents & Family Weekend. But there was no formal or dramatic opening, just the repositioning of construction-zone markers. In fact, the two main walkways have been fully paved for some time now and pedestrians have strayed into the construction zone east of Pettengill with little ado.

So what really seemed like a breakthrough as the festive weekend began on Sept. 28 was the opening of a broad blacktop connection between North Bardwell and the Library Quad. That removed the last north-south barrier on the walk. Also noteworthy was the newly liberated entrance plaza to Pettengill Hall, unencumbered by construction fencing for the first time in weeks.

Aside from paving, the other heavy Alumni Walk work was taking place in the space between Lane and Pettengill halls. Delayed by the unexpected need to replace a steam line, construction of the little amphitheater facing Lake Andrews resumed by the last week of September. Workers built a set of forms for the concrete steps and were grading the slope as the month drew to a close.

Cosmetic projects were also in progress, with the planting of the 140,000 scilla bulbs, the laying of sod and the erection of pole lights on the walk. The concrete benches for the walk would start to appear during the first week of October, said Paul Farnsworth, manager of the Alumni Walk and new dining Commons projects. But the lights mounted underneath the benches won’t cast their dreamlike glow for a while, as equipment for that system will need to be installed in Pettengill.

New student housing: With the construction workforce at 280 College St. dwindling fast, the most conspicuous activity this week has been paving.

The top coat of asphalt on the main walkway at College Street and Mountain Avenue should be completed Sept. 28. Asphalt crews are also finishing sidewalks around the building site, as well as finish-coating the roadway on Mountain Avenue where it was opened up for utilities work at the start of the new student housing project, way back when.

For a few weeks, new crosswalks configured for handicapped access have been in the works on College Street near the new residence. That project is mostly done — the final impediment being the demand for parking. Parked cars have continually blocked access to a crosswalk ramp opposite Ware Street, “and the contractor has not been able to pave the ramp,” clerk of the works Susanne Grant wrote this week in a campuswide e-mail. The contractor planned to try again on the 28th.

On the outside of 280 College, a fair amount of trim remains to be installed. Approved this week in mockup form, metal panels will soon appear between and around the window-walls of the living rooms and the Stangle Lounge (formerly known as the fireplace lounge). Metal trim and a wooden ceiling will cover the bottoms of the “bridges,” the aerial breezeways that link the sections of the building.

It’s not the quickest process, explained project manager Pam Wichroski, because “there are lots of trades involved in a small area” for each trim job. She expects the trim to be finished in early October.

Meanwhile, the last of four decorative fiberglass columns were erected on the porch of the Stangle Lounge on the 28th. Also in that courtyard, a replacement gas grill is expected next week, as the current unit was damaged in shipping. Students won’t have to miss next week’s predicted barbecuing weather, Wichroski noted: “The day the grill shows up, it can be connected” and fired up. Buon appetito.

The commissioning process is all but complete, with the testing of the steam-heat system the last major piece. That will happen when the campuswide heating plant is fired up, probably in October, and will take a couple weeks to complete, Wichroski said.

The Frank J. Stangle Lounge — made possible by a gift from Bruce Stangle ’70 and Emily Siegel Stangle ’72 in memory of Bruce’s father — has seen the last big concentration of interior work. And now it’s nearly done. With a small formal dedication planned for the Trustees’ October visit, “essentially, the lounge is ready to be used,” said Wichroski. Cleaning, touch-ups and the “punch list” — a final inspection process — remain to be done. Furniture goes in next week.

Wichroski noted that the city issued an occupancy permit for the lounge on Sept. 27. That same day, Campus Construction Update peeked through an open door and was impressed by the cherry-stained wood ceiling and the cool greens and blues of the flooring — to say nothing of the play of sunlight and shadows in this lofty, complex space.

Dana renovation: Parents & Family Weekend also provided an occasion for the campus community and guests to inspect two newly renovated labs in Dana Chemistry. Upgraded during the summer, labs 106 and 206 were gutted and extensively refitted, their new appointments including ceilings, flooring and nearly everything in between.

A particular focus was the ventilation system. An additional exhaust fan was installed in the attic, while existing air systems got new motors and modern controls. Most important, early-1960s fume hoods were replaced with larger, all-glass models affording instructors better visibility into the units.

“The rest of the building is in decent shape, as renovations took place in other areas in the late ’90s,” said Physical Plant’s Mike Gustin, who led the project.

New dining Commons: What the heck are tip kettles and why does the new Commons need them when Dining Services workers don’t even accept gratuities? Find out on Oct. 12, when Campus Construction Update reports on a visit behind the scenes.

Readers write: “I’ve noticed on many nights that condensation forms on the roof of the new dorm and it virtually ‘rains’ off the roof from late night through early morning,” wrote Nick Bauer ’08.

The reason could be that the roof is metal, Wichroski suggested. Since metal cools faster than other roofing materials, condensation takes place more quickly and therefore more water rains off, especially during periods of high humidity and broad temperature swings. Which leads us to . . .

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

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For a bird’s-eye view of the locations for the new student housing and dining Commons, plug these coordinates into Google Earth or Google Maps (for the latter, click “Satellite” or “Hybrid”):

New Student Housing: 44 06 25.65 N, 70 12 23.67 W

New Dining Commons: 44 06 19.83 N, 70 12 06.93 W

It was close quarters in front of Pettengill Hall as a chain-link fence choked the space and busy people maneuvered around each other.

Bates clerk-of-the-works John Rasmussen hung signs to steer pedestrians toward the latest Alumni Walk crossing.

A photographer sought a vantage point for the most dramatic view of the hubbub. A young guy pushed a groaning wheelbarrow full of mortar toward the masons paving the Pettengill entranceway with gray asphalt blocks and a shiny granite border.

The soundscape was crowded, too, with the racket of full-tilt construction activity. Some distance away, near the new dining Commons, excavators clawed at the dirt, bulldozers rolled to and fro, and other machines made chess moves with paper birch saplings. Workers in hardhats stood in consulting in groups or milled around with tools and clipboards.

And periodically amidst all the bustle, some of the people for whose benefit all this is happening appeared. Singly, in pairs and in backpack-toting, just-back-from-AESOP flocks, Bates students found the new Alumni Walk crossing — intent on their business and scarcely looking at the work site.

That was the scene on Friday, Aug. 31, as construction crews rushed to get much of Alumni Walk ready for traffic. The short-term objective is to open the walk from College Street as far east as Pettengill Hall. The entire walk won’t be finished for weeks, and even in the section soon to open, landscaping chores, the placement of benches and lights, and similar work will continue.

While there is much to say about the greater significance of the walk to the evolution of the Bates campus, the anticipated partial opening will have an immediate practical effect: After months of fenced-off walkways, closed building entrances and unpredictable access, it’ll suddenly be a lot easier to get where you’re going.

Newly opened is the entrance to Alumni Walk between Hedge Hall and Dana Chemistry. It leads through a fenced corridor across the work zone to Pettengill. The Z-shaped, fenced corridor that led from Pettengill through no-man’s-land is closed — no more going mano a mano with dump trucks and power shovels.

With work winding down during the last week of August on steam vault No. 1, in front of Pettengill, workers went full speed ahead with the cosmetic work that turns a bunch of dirt into an Alumni Walk: grading, paving, planting. In fact, one of the walk’s two main pathways — the narrower northern lane — has been blacktopped all the way to its terminus near the new Commons.

The last of the 178 or so paper birches should be in place by the Labor Day weekend, including several planted in front of Roger Bill as a way to blend new and old landscapes. Hydroseeding of grass has begun, and sod will be laid in the coming weeks. Needless to say, most of the lush crop of weeds is history. (But read a sidebar on the topic.)

Several new entranceways to buildings facing the walk have been paved. The long-awaited dark-gray granite for those entranceway borders arrived Aug. 22. Finally, as project manager Paul Farnsworth noted, light poles have arrived and the concrete benches for the walk are being cast, with installation to begin soon.

(Note to readers: Because of a change in the schedule for Alumni Walk work, the preceding section of this article has been revised since it was first published, on Aug. 31.)

Getting around: The path from North Bardwell Street to Central Avenue and the athletics facilities is paved and open for traffic.

And with the recent shrinkage of the fenced-off Commons work site, it’s once again possible to wiggle past the north side of Alumni Gym to get to Central Avenue. Just be sure to admire the big green Cummins backup generator for the new Commons as you go by.

New student housing: Speaking of steam vault No. 1, one of the last items on its particular checklist was testing with live steam. Physical Plant fired up the campus steam plant on Aug. 30 and opened the new pipes as far west as vault No. 1.

The following day, the lines were opened as far as 280 College St., the new student housing, so that the heat exchangers could be checked. The building relies on central steam both for heat and, in the cold weather, hot water.

Project manager Pam Wichroski reported that — for the most part — “the building is pretty much complete. The students have access to everything.” With the installation on Aug. 28 of a commercial-grade stove, the residence’s kitchen was ready for use. The laundry room, too, was made serviceable during the last week of August.

Still unfinished is the fireplace lounge, in the center section. Also remaining are what Wichroski called “punch-list items” — construction defects needing to be fixed — and mechanical testing.

New dining Commons: The division of space inside the new Commons is all but complete, with most interior walls framed in and many drywalled. The space will continue to change, for sure, but it’s easy to get a sense of how the finished building will feel.

The corner closest to Central Avenue and Alumni Gym, containing the kitchen, serving areas and the “back of the house,” is already a warren of corridors, offices, mechanical and service spaces, and shiny metal coolers. The pizza oven is in place, ringed by a snazzy lighting soffit, and exhaust hoods mark where other serving stations will appear.

Floor tiles in the kitchen and in some bathrooms have been laid and grouting was being done during the last week of August, Farnsworth noted. “Once the floor is down, the kitchen equipment guy will be back.”

An east-west interior corridor will link Alumni Walk with the path that crosses Central Avenue toward Merrill Gym. This “Arcade” will be punctuated with a convenience store, an open dining area equipped with booths, and in the northwest corner, a round fireplace lounge.

Upstairs, the main corridor is lined with large and small conference rooms, including one whose high-tech sound system will amplify conferees’ voices by means of microphones way up near the ceiling. (So much for “tap, tap, is this thing on?”) At the northwest corner, a balcony over the fireplace lounge connects with conference rooms to form a suite with knockout views of Pettengill Hall and Alumni Walk.

Finally, there’s the dining area. Its ceiling, still unfinished, is already an object of fascination, soaring up to a point dozens of yards up.

The ceiling will ultimately be sheathed with wood — but the prep work “was quite an exercise in layout,” Farnsworth explained: The wooden sheath will comprise two alternating widths of board, and the sprinkler heads and light fixtures need to poke through the centers of the wider boards.

“The sprinklers have to be symmetrical to meet code, and we want the lights symmetrical, and we had to hit the wide boards, which are going up four differently angled sides,” Farnsworth said. “They got it figured out.”

One of the building’s showpieces will be a grand stairway at the north side near the lounge. In something of a milestone, the first piece of structural steel for that feature was placed during the last week of the month. But, added Farnsworth, “they’ve got a lot more steel up for stairway No. 2, which goes from the dining hall up to the mezzanine.”

The steel work, Farnsworth added, is being done by a custom metalworking shop in Turner called Accidental Anomalies.

On the outside, weatherproofing the giant boxlike ventilation monitor on the roof is finished, clearing the way for workers to lay slate on the southern face of the roof. The monitor will be revisited in October to remove temporary weather barriers and install glass in a southeast-facing skylight.

And, with the exterior masonry work all but finished, workers are installing elegant gray zinc trim around the building. “You’ve got to look at the overhang at the east entry,” Farnsworth told Campus Construction Update. “It’s gorgeous.”

He’s right.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to this Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Campus Construction Update appears every other week. See an index of earlier updates here.

For a bird’s-eye view of the locations for the new student housing and dining Commons, plug these coordinates into Google Earth or Google Maps (for the latter, click “Satellite” or “Hybrid”):

New Student Housing: 44 06 25.65 N, 70 12 23.67 W

New Dining Commons: 44 06 19.83 N, 70 12 06.93 W

Related Stories

Aug.30:
So which one’s the pigweed again?

Even as workers were whacking down and pulling up the green shag carpet of Alumni Walk weeds, Susan Hayward joined Campus Construction Update at the site on Aug. 27 to identify the plants that had volunteered so eagerly this summer.

Hayward is an amateur botanist, a professional environmental educator and president of the Stanton Bird Club.

A few species by far dominated the crop: lamb’s quarters, field mustard and green amaranth. (Both green amaranth and lamb’s quarters are often called pigweed.)

All three can be eaten — although nitrates accumulate in amaranth leaves, so you’d want to limit yourself to a few young leaves in your salad. Or forget it altogether.

You’ve likely seen lamb’s quarters, an intrepid and prolific plant with pointy leaves that are green on top and whitish on the bottom. It was by far the most profuse weed on Alumni Walk.

“Commons could cook this up and feed the whole campus,” Hayward said, indicating the masses of lamb’s quarters. In fact, the plant was first brought to this country from Europe as a pot herb, and its flavor resembles that of spinach.

But, like pigweed, lamb’s quarters can concentrate undesirable substances, and moderation is recommended.

The seeds that become your hot dog topping come from black mustard, a relative of field mustard. But field mustard greens are nutritious and have a delicious bitter-spicy taste. (Another relative, the tasty broccoli rabe, turns up in grocery stores in the spring.)

Hayward pointed out other specimens whose value was more decorative than culinary. Lady’s thumb has long, pointed leaves sporting irregular purple blotches, which raises the question of what exactly the lady was doing with her thumbs.

The best-looking weed, though, was velvet-leaf, whose rounded, heart-shaped leaves really did feel like velvet. It’s also known as Indian mallow — it comes from India — and pie-maker, because the seed cases look like pie crusts.

“I keep a life list of plants I have ever seen,” Hayward said, “and velvet-leaf is a new one for me.”
A weed is a weed, of course, only if you don’t like it. Our tour turned up only a couple specimens that I was glad to tell goodbye. Everyone’s good friend, crabgrass, was one.
Another was one of the few native species we discovered: ragweed, whose plain green flowers are hard to see but, as many allergy sufferers know, easy to detect.