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.

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

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

Between the mud, the plastic wrap and the concrete, the colors of construction work are predominantly drab. But what “colorful” colors there are, as major building projects at Bates this year have shown, can be surprisingly bold.

Intense-blue weather membranes. Orange-yellow baffles for stormwater detention. Turquoise pipes. Not to mention the insulation: Hot pink around the foundation of the new Commons! Lurid mustard on the Commons walls!

And, starting this week, acid green insulating foam on the new student housing.

The 2-inch foam layer, sprayed on by a person wearing what looks like a space suit, brings the housing project a step closer to its finished appearance (no, not green). The foam will ultimately coat all three sections of the building, followed by the final sheathing: brick on the two flankers (that is, wings), and on the center core a cementitious product that resembles clapboards.

With staging already in place by the southeast wall of the building, the bricklaying could begin next week, depending on the weather, said project manager Pam Wichroski. Much of the brick, she said, “is a red brick that’s kind of a cross between the colors of Libbey and Rand,” buildings to either side of the new housing.

In addition, on the walls facing the center core and the courtyard area between building sections, “there will be bands of grayish-white brick,” she added. The idea is “to add a little bit of life to the courtyard. There’s enough going on elsewhere with all the dormers and the glazing, but when you get to the courtyard, the bands add interest and scale.”

Supplying the brick is a local firm, Morin Brick Co. of Auburn.

Out of the public eye, meanwhile, workers in diverse trades are pulling the interior into shape. Ceramic tiling is complete in the first-floor bathrooms in the east flanker, and first-floor drywall is all but finished in both flankers. Drywall work is about to begin on the third floors, with the second floors well along.

Progress engenders progress. Because some permanent staircases are now in place, augmenting cramped temporary scaffold staircases, and because workers can now cross the bridges between the flankers and center section, getting around inside is much easier. “It certainly has an impact,” said Wichroski. “If you need to compare something on one side of the building versus the other, you don’t have to go all the way down, across and up again.”

Alumni Walk: As this space indicated last week, work on the cross-campus Alumni Walk resumes on Monday, April 16.

New details about the work are available. Notably, parking on Andrews Road will be discontinued forever at 5 p.m. Sunday, according to the Security and Campus Safety office.

In addition, this map indicates the work zones for the opening phases of construction. Initial pedestrian walkways — they will change over time — are indicated by heavy violet lines.

Paul Farnsworth, manager of the Alumni Walk and new dining Commons projects, noted in an April 11 staff e-mail that “construction noise will be similar to what was experienced last fall and what has been ongoing at the dining construction site all year.”

Finally, some 11 trees tagged last fall for removal, but left standing during the big cut-down in December, will be felled in the coming days. Most of them are smaller trees near the new Commons, but also going, as landscaping begins, are the two large maples standing guard at the west end of Andrews Road. Already weakened by disease and damage, they would have been removed regardless of the Alumni Walk work, Farnsworth wrote.

Dining Commons: The new housing and Commons offer constant reminders that construction is successive in nature — that is, task C can’t be performed until tasks A and B are done.

“It’s a whole series of trades that always follow each other,” Farnsworth commented.

So after the concrete slab for the Commons kitchen floor was poured on April 6, the fireproofer could then go in and do his spraying, so that the framers could follow him and start installing studs for the interior walls. And after the servery floor is poured today, it all comes ’round again.

We were curious about the fireproofing. That, Farnsworth explained, entails the spray application of a cellulose-based compound on the building’s structural elements. It’s a kind of insulation that, in case of fire, would protect the structural steel from the weakening effects of heat, buying more time for people to exit the building and for firefighters to do their work.

The next major slab to be poured will be at the Commons’ northeast corner, where rest rooms and offices will be located. The pour will likely happen the last week of April. The second-floor slab will follow.

The concrete comes from the Dragon Products plant in Lewiston.

On the outside, the placement of corrugated steel roof decking continues apace, making for dramatic scenes of workers clambering up and down the roofline.

If you’ve seen panels scattered seemingly at random and unattended on the west face of the roof, those are actually stacks of panels pre-positioned when a crane of sufficient muscle was available. Now workers are shifting the plates into place with ropes and fastening them down. The next phase of roofing will involve white panels that afford a flat support for the upper layers of the roofing sandwich.

Mmmmm, roofing sandwich . . .

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 here.

Photo Opps: See panoramic views taken March 13 of campus improvement projects. Click the links for the Commons itself, Commons in a southern view, in a northern view and the new student housing.

And 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

About nine months remain before students move into the new student housing, adjacent to Rand Hall.

And, much the way an image materializes on an old-fashioned photo in its chemical bath, the outlines of the facility are taking clear shape. As the mass of the structure becomes perceptible, the stretch of College Street between it and the Chapel is taking on a new intimacy that suggests how this redefined area will feel. (See a campus map.)

What really seemed to bring home the building’s form and scale was the recent completion of the gables on the two wings, also called “flankers.” This week, steel trusses and other components for the roof started to arrive — 130 trusses, 47 beams for the two roof levels of the center section, and countless other wood and metal items, according to project manager Pam Wichroski.

A row of seven “doghouse” dormers on the east and west sides is creating a distinctive sawtoothed roofline on the wings. The western dormers will look out on Mount David, and the eastern set, College Street.

The walls of the facility’s center section are quickly catching up with those of the wings. Last week the concrete planks for the section’s third floor were laid and the basement floor, tinted a dark gray, was poured. And the roughing-in of electrical, plumbing and mechanical services in the flankers is moving apace, Wichroski said.

Finally, she said, workers have begun to install siding on the new bike shed, next to the existing Rand Hall. The shed will provide secure storage for some 40 bikes.

Steel to rise at Commons: The steel framework of the new dining Commons will begin to take shape next week. A crane is scheduled to arrive Tuesday, Jan. 16, and the steel itself will start rolling in the following day, said project manager Paul Farnsworth. The steel, manufactured by the Quebecois company Canatal Industries Inc., will come in four waves totaling 15 to 20 truckloads.

The framing work will begin in the northeast corner of the foundation. To make way for the steel deliveries, Farnsworth said, the current path between Alumni Gym and the construction site will be closed to pedestrian traffic, although access to the gym’s basement door will remain.

Meanwhile, preliminary foundation work for the dining hall is virtually complete. Digging has begun for the last section of the frost wall, the northwest corner where a fireplace lounge will be located. That section was left for last, Farnsworth explained, because of the complex curvature of the walls.

“With the foundation work pretty much complete, they’re going to clean up the site to give the crane and the steel workers room to move,” Farnsworth said. “Those miscellaneous materials that are sitting around and the last of the muck and debris will be cleared from around the building.”

More about the tree-cutting: As this space announced would occur in December, trees along Andrews Road were removed during the Christmas vacation.

Seventy-eight trees were cut down in a swath wider than the roadway — reaching, in fact, into the landscaped areas between buildings, although a few landmark trees were spared. The work was done in preparation for construction of the Bates Walk, construction that will include the planting of 178 native paper birch trees. The walk is scheduled for completion by October 2007.

The clearing was publicized on campus last October through informational gatherings about the village and Commons-Bates Walk projects. Still, a number of people were dismayed to return to campus on Jan. 2 and find all the stumps between the buildings on Andrews.

Driving the tree removal were factors including wide-ranging excavation for utilities work, regrading and the landscaping plan for the Bates Walk, which will be replanted in the form of a grove comprising only birches. In a Jan. 9 e-mail to staff and faculty, President Elaine Tuttle Hansen also made the important point that some plantings were removed so that the banking between Dana Chemistry and Hathorn can be regraded for handicapped accessibility. “The new plan makes this whole part of campus more accessible to the physically disabled,” she wrote.