{"id":137376,"date":"2020-12-03T13:05:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T18:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=137376"},"modified":"2026-02-19T08:59:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T13:59:40","slug":"campus-construction-update-dec-4-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2020\/12\/03\/campus-construction-update-dec-4-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus Construction Update: Dec. 4, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Completed this year after two decades of planning and construction, Bates\u2019 restoration of the exterior and the signature stained-glass windows of the Peter J. Gomes Chapel has been recognized by a statewide historic preservation organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2020 Honor Award from Maine Preservation<\/a> is not only a feather in the college’s cap but a lifetime-achievement award of sorts for Jim Nutting ’76, who restored most of the stained glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat’s one of my legacies,\u201d says Nutting, who points out that he married his first wife, also a Bates graduate, in the chapel. He rebuilt nine of the chapel’s 10 large decorative windows, eight of which date from the mid-1930s and depict influential figures in Western history. (One of those, featuring poet Dante Alighieri and artist Fra Angelico, was rebuilt as a pilot project by a different contractor circa 2012.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Brilliant<\/a>
Brilliant restored images of Virgil, Aristotle, and Homer look on during a reopening ceremony for the Peter J. Gomes Chapel on Sept. 2, 2020. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The work will \u201cstand for 100 years or more,\u201d says an understandably proud Nutting, who has done stained-glass work since the 1970s and went full time in 1997. He does business as Maine Art Glass<\/a> down the road from Bates in the town of Lisbon Falls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from the Dante\u2013Fra Angelico panel, “I did absolutely every speck” of rebuilding the Gomes glass panels, says Nutting.\u201cIt was an honor. I’m so proud to have been involved.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Jim was the right person for the job,\u201d says Pam Wichroski, Bates’ director of capital planning and construction. \u201cWe were lucky to find him.” She adds, “It’s always good to have a Bates alum involved.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The beauty of stained glass is hard to match,” says Nutting. “You can look at all the architecture and fancy woodwork, but the glass jumps out at you, because it lets the light through and the colors. It’s exciting.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Jim<\/a>
Jim Nutting ’76 poses with the newly restored panel depicting Leonardo da Vinci. (Courtesy of Jim Nutting ’76)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Nutting took a course in making stained glass soon after graduating from Bates with a biology major. (He has a Butterfly and Insect Museum alongside his studio and retail store in the former St. Cyril and St. Methodius Church in downtown Lisbon Falls.) He took up glass work full time after 25 years at Central Maine Medical Center, where he started as a dishwasher while still at Bates and rose to the post of corporate fundraiser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For major projects, Nutting partners with Matt Kendall, whose Vintage Glass Works<\/a> handles business arrangements and field installation while Nutting focuses on the glass art itself.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Recaming a decorative window. (Courtesy of Jim Nutting ’76)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Consigli Construction, which assumed management of the Gomes project early on, asked the pair to complete the stained glass after a prior contractor dropped out. The project was the largest Nutting has ever taken on. \u201cI might not have undertaken it if I\u2019d been by myself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were talking about performing a miracle in nine, 10 months.” The work would include cleaning usable original glass, finding and cutting new glass to replace broken pieces, and replacing structural components, notably the “came,” the metal strips that hold the glass bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they made it happen. “Seeing how great a team they were to work with and how seamless the transition was, it was nothing short of a fantastic experience with them,” says Nate Berry, Consigli’s project manager for the Gomes work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For both the glass team and Consigli’s masons (the company’s masonry expertise goes back to its founding in 1905), particular challenges came with replacing the window traceries, ornate components in cast stone (a refined form of concrete) that hold the glass assemblies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tracery replicas were products of state-of-the-art technology, but the process also produced that rare phenomenon: the perfect being the enemy of the perfect. The dimensions of the new traceries were more uniform than the window openings, which had shifted over years of exposure to the elements. That necessitated some assiduous tweaking in both the glass studio and the chapel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stained-glass panels, though rebuilt to specification, needed subsequent size adjustments. They also had to be partially disassembled \u2014 as Nutting casually puts it, “broken” \u2014 and fitted section by section into the traceries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Consigli masonry foreman Keith Lyford put his 40 years of experience to work finding ways to fit the traceries to their window openings. \u201cThat was one of the biggest conflicts we had to work through, but with the expertise of Keith and his team, it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t overcome,” says Berry.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pre-restoration glass awaits Jim Nutting’s attention at Maine Art Glass. (Courtesy of Jim Nutting ’76)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Gomes restoration has been on Wichroski’s radar more or less since 2000 and her arrival at Bates as a Facility Services project manager. Having it done “feels wonderful,” she says. “I’ll no longer walk around the chapel just cringing at the continued deterioration.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was Bates’ first project manager for the chapel, but not the last \u2014 that would be Shelby Burgau, who started at Bates in 2017. “She’s very hands-on, very detailed, so she was great at working closely with the Consigli team and monitoring their progress,” Wichroski says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Burgau herself says, \u201cThe chapel means so much to so many people \u2014 I feel really proud that we were able to restore its structural integrity and original beauty so that people can continue to enjoy it for another century-plus.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bates’ Honor Award was one of 12 given for building projects. (It’s Bates\u2019 second such accolade from Maine Preservation: The first recognized the college’s transformation of Hedge and Roger Williams halls into academic buildings.) And the honor, says Wichroski, validates the college’s decision to take the high road in refurbishing the 1913 chapel, hewing as closely as possible to the original aesthetic and functional goals for the building.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"With<\/a>
A Consigli Construction mason chisels out old mortar on the north wall of the Gomes Chapel in April. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As for Nutting, he made sure that his and Kendall’s contributions would be remembered, signing their names in glass on one panel and dating it. Nutting says that he feels “a lot of affinity towards the college. I’ve always been proud to have graduated from Bates.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winning the bronze metal<\/strong>: The next time you wander up Bardwell Street toward Bates, you’ll be able to see with your own eyes evidence of the biggest news in the construction of the Bonney Science Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
\"Hahnel

Hahnel Brothers employees place Revere ContinentalBronze roofing panels, at right, on the southeast corner of the Bonney building. Nearby are exhaust stacks for boilers in the penthouse. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"Washing

Washing brickwork on the science center’s south wall. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"The

The design of these new tiles in a Bonney center bathroom has some fun with geometry. The red items at the top are spacers that maintain the specified gap between tiles until grout is applied. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"If

If if weren’t for all the lifts bearing workers, this view of the Bonney Science Center’s south wall might convince you that the building’s about done. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"A

A massive sheaf of plans dominates a third-floor chemistry lab. The attractive blue film on the air ducts keeps contaminants out. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"Metal

Metal staging, window framing, and wall studs form a complex grid against a backdrop of translucent plastic in the Bonney Science Center’s Beacon. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"Signs

Signs of the times. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"Now

Now completely sheathed in brick, the south wall of the Bonney center is shown early on Dec. 2, 2020. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"Located

Located in the Bonney center penthouse, the blue boilers at left will heat water for both domestic use (handwashing, soaking decals prior to application, etc.) and space heating. At right is a battery of water pumps. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"The

The Muskie Archives is visible from this third-floor classroom through a gap in the poly window covering. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"The

The green and gray around this first-floor doorway are finish coats of paint. The “peach” is actually white primer, color-shifted by the camera. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"A

A northwestern view of the Bonney center with the sun rising at left. The “tent” above the site fence tells you that bricklaying has begun on the Campus Avenue face of the building: This poly enclosure will help keep mortar warm enough to cure properly. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Atop the building at the right-hand corner, placement has begun of the final layer of roofing: dark gray panels of a product called ContinentalBronze, manufactured by Revere Copper Products of Rome, N.Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roofers for Hahnel Brothers of Lewiston began laying the pre-oxidized copper roof covering last week. Because of its underlying structure, drainage system, and contours, the roof overall is complex enough that constructing it has been meticulously planned \u2014 and recent revisions to that planning cleared the way for the ContinentalBronze work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in July, we told you about the Bonney stormwater gutters<\/a>, a sophisticated setup that will route runoff into the building for discharge into city storm pipes. And as the project team pondered gutters and roof, they found ways to make the installation of the two systems less interdependent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe short story is that now they can put the roof on first and go to town with that, and finish the gutter second,\u201d explains Chris Streifel, Bates project manager in charge of Bonney. The original plan was to build the gutters first. Another important revision was to the mechanism that will join the roof and gutters.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Newly<\/a>
Newly primed lab space on the Bonney building’s second floor. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Those changes will simplify and speed construction, but that’s not the only upside. \u201cIt’s great for Bates long-term, because in my estimation, the first thing that we’ll need to do service on, during the potential 50- to 100-year lifespan of the roof, is going to be those gutters,\u201d Streifel says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That first section of ContinentalBronze should be finished by early next week, and you’ll get an even better view if you stand on top of your car or on a stepladder. (Campus Construction Update, in fact, never leaves the office without a stepladder and, of course, a mask).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While work inside the science center continues full tilt, the other news headlines involve the building envelope, or as the experts say, the outside of it. Arriving on the day before Thanksgiving was all the glass, cut to order, for the building’s three glass “curtain walls.” O&P Glass of Augusta, Maine, will start installing glass on one of those features, called the Beacon, any day now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, near the Beacon, bricklayers for Maine Masonry have gotten to work on the Campus Avenue side of the building \u2014 their last for this project. There’s still brick work to finish on the Bardwell Street side, but the south and west faces are fully bricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/a>
An image taken Nov. 28 by a time-lapse camera atop Chu Hall shows new roofing panels, top center, and completed brickwork on the south wall of the Bonney building. (Courtesy of Chris Streifel\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s looking great, especially if you’re coming up Nichols Street,\u201d Streifel says. From that direction, \u201ceverything you can see looks finished. It’s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we talk<\/strong>? Campus Construction Update welcomes queries and comments about current, past, future, and imaginary construction at Bates. Write to dhubley@bates.edu<\/a>, putting \u201cCampus Construction\u201d or \u201cWhat have the ladder people got on you?\u201d in the subject line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapel preservation award shows true colors of Nutting ’76. Not to be outdone, the Bonney Science Center gets the bronze metal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":137404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11011,11009],"tags":[11942,1932,1312],"class_list":["post-137376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards","category-the-college","tag-bonney-science-center","tag-campus-construction-updates","tag-gomes-chapel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137376"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172025,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137376\/revisions\/172025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}