{"id":139841,"date":"2021-05-19T14:37:08","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T18:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=139841"},"modified":"2026-02-19T09:28:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:28:35","slug":"campus-construction-update-may-20-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2021\/05\/19\/campus-construction-update-may-20-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus Construction Update: May 20, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For Campus Construction Update, whose physique has been chiseled by years of lugging stepladders across campus so as to peep over construction-site fences, it\u2019s something to celebrate when the fence comes down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we\u2019ve been looking forward to a bourbon and Moxie float since we saw, this week, that much of the fence around the Bonney Science Center site had disappeared: specifically, along parts of Nichols and Bardwell streets, and all of the Campus Avenue section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Losing the latter is especially significant because the building\u2019s north facade is its visual calling card. It incorporates the center\u2019s main entrance and two signature design features, a two-story glass-walled lounge called the Beacon and a come-hither staircase, also showcased in glass, billed as the Monumental Stair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"The

The Bonney Science Center shown from the Historic Quad on May 17, 2021. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"A

A worker power-washes brickwork at the Nichols Street entrance to the Bonney Science Center on May 19. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Exterior

This May 19 view shows sitework at Bonney Science Center along Campus Avenue, including contractor Gendron & Gendron setting curbs at the entrance plaza that will be paved with asphalt blocks. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Only

Only finishing touches remain to be done on the exterior of the Bonney Science Center, shown from the south on May 17. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Look,

Look, Ma \u2014 no fence! A May 17 view of the science center from the intersection of Bardwell Street and Campus Avenue. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Carnegie

Carnegie Science Hall’s rooftop exhaust stacks are reflected in the Bonney Center’s Monumental Stair curtain wall. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"These

These concrete benches will be placed on the Bonney Science Center grounds. They resemble the benches found on Alumni Walk. At right are pallets of asphalt pavers; at rear is a charging station for electric vehicles. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"The

The freshly contoured runoff basin at the back of the Bonney Center lot. Storm runoff will be routed through the basin to slow surges of water into the municipal stormwater system. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"A

A Consigli Construction employee at work on steps at the Bonney building’s Nichols Street entrance on May 17. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"What's

What’s missing from this Bonney Science Center photo taken May 17 at the corner of Campus Avenue, at left, and Nichols Street? The site fence has been removed, making way for subcontractor Gendron & Gendron to do site work around the front of the building. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Site

Site work in progress on May 17 near the main entrance (at left) of the science center. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Shown

Shown from a third-floor window, an excavator spreads subsoil in front of the science center. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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The building\u2019s exterior structure, as a matter of fact, is fundamentally done, although work continues on tricky bits like rain gutters, entryway fittings, and window housings. The outdoor emphasis has shifted to the site at large, notably that Campus Avenue frontage and the large service and parking area behind the building, on the south side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we stopped by, on Monday, a crew from sitework contractor Gendron & Gendron was using an excavator and shovels to spread rough subsoil over what you might call the center\u2019s front yard. This will soon be topped by landscaping and a triangular entrance plaza paved with charcoal-gray asphalt blocks identical to those laid on Alumni Walk 13 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, on the south side, landscaping has commenced at the back of the lot. The stormwater diversion basin has been contoured and ringed with a few bushes and trees (no diving board yet), and a line of saplings now runs from east to west. According to construction administrator Jacob Kendall, tree species in the back lot include quaking or trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides<\/em>) and the showy evergreen known as weeping Alaskan cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis<\/em> or Xanthocyparis nootkatensis<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Trees
Trees are starting to appear on the south side of the Bonney building lot. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The south side remains the place to stage supplies, so the dance between storage and production in these tight quarters \u2014 a dance familiar nearly from the start of the Bonney project \u2014 will continue just a bit longer. Among the pallets loaded with lamp bases and paving blocks, we were interested to see long blocky concrete benches that will be placed around the science center. It\u2019s another visual echo of Alumni Walk, a project as transformative to the campus culture as Bonney will be to the practice of life sciences at Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than a third glass wall, this one providing serious distraction potential to inhabitants of a third-floor classroom, the Bardwell Street view won\u2019t offer much to passers-by besides sidewalk and a grassy esplanade (also known in the no-punches-pulled parlance of public works as a snow shelf, because that’s where the street plows heap up the snow).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The south side of the Bonney Science Center lot is shown from the roof on May 17. Note the stormwater detention basin at left and the pallets of hardscaping materials. The leftmost of the Jersey barriers is near the former site of the Campus Construction Update penthouse. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the opposite end of the building, the Nichols street side features an entrance and a bench that’s built into the hardscape. Still shady in the late morning, that area was occupied Monday by a couple of concrete workers finishing up the steps and the bench in preparation for the final placement of subsoil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The science center interior was no ghost town on Monday, but neither was it the beehive of March and April. And the work the workers were doing signaled the end game: painters brushing final coats onto handrails, cleaners polishing glass on a research lab door, the lead technician for Cornerstone Commissioning checking machinery in the fourth-story penthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we’re scrambling anywhere, it’s at the building entrances, just to make sure that those are done to support the move-in and occupancy,\u201d which begin in June, says Chris Streifel, Bonney Center project manager for Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"A

A view of Carnegie Science from a second-story lab in the Bonney Center. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Bates

Bates construction administrator Jacob Kendall demonstrates an emergency eye-wash station in a Bonney Center chemistry lab. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Fume

Fume hoods in a chemistry teaching lab on the Bonney Center’s third floor. The unit at center can be moved up and down for use by people with physical impairments. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Employees

Employees of General Contracting Services of Woburn, Mass., clean a third-floor door. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"A

A chemistry teaching lab. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Painting

Painting in progress and polished (but dusty) concrete in the Monumental Stair. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Cleaned

Cleaned and punch-listed, this biology lab is ready to be supplied and equipped. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"The

The south side of the Bonney Science Center seen from Nichols Street on May 17, 2021. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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\"Site

Site subcontractor Gendron & Gendron sets curbing along the Bonney Science Center’s Campus Avenue frontage on May 19. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>

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Another portent of finality was the \u201cRoom final cleaned \/ Ready for punchlist\u201d signs taped up all over the place. (When you enter such a room, you step first onto a tacky mat that pulls all the dirt from your shoe soles.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re close to two-thirds of the way through\u201d punch-listing, Streifel says. The third and second floors, the basement vivarium, and parts of the first floor are done. It\u2019s a bit paradoxical that the last areas for punch-listing will be those that are either the least or the most important \u2014 examples of the latter being mechanical spaces, corridors, and stairways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greater Dana<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also true that, in yet another emotional roller-coaster ride, the glow from those celebratory bourbon and Moxie floats won\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because soon after the Bonney site fence goes away, a new one will spring up halfway across campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dana
Dana Chemistry Hall, along with the section of Alumni Walk that fronts on it, will be closed for renovation for a year starting around the end of June. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This time the object of attention won\u2019t be a brand-new building, but rather a brand-new role for an old one: 56-year-old Dana Chemistry Hall, soon to undergo a yearlong gut renovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we\u2019ve reported<\/a>, the building of Bonney and the Dana makeover belong to the same greater project: nothing less than a comprehensive reconfiguration of Bates science facilities, also including Carnegie Science Hall. This is the result of a review of Bates STEM facilities (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) conducted in 2016 under the direction of Payette, the Boston-area firm that, in partnership with faculty and staff, subsequently designed the Bonney Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dana will be rebuilt to focus on science teaching, with a goal of effectively welcoming new students to STEM fields. Bonney, of course, will be a campus hub for faculty and programs in biology, chemistry, and neuroscience with overlapping research interests and technical needs. Carnegie, whose original structure is more than 100 years old and has been twice expanded, will be updated to better serve programs in concomitant STEM fields such as physics, and earth and climate sciences, formerly geology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Dana, says Chris Streifel, \u201ceverything comes out and a lot of the building\u2019s central core is reconfigured to open up space and provide a sense of transparency. It\u2019ll be less of a warren of small dark hallways and dark rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"This
This wall of Dana Chemistry Hall faces Hedge Hall. Currently a busy pathway between the Historic Quad and Alumni Walk, this area will be a hotspot for the Dana renovation and will be closed off. An early chore will be the removal of HVAC and other machinery through the gable. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cSo we realign some of the main corridors to give better sight lines and a more logical flow through the building. And then we\u2019re moving away from research to focus on teaching, so we\u2019ll have chemistry teaching labs on the first floor, biology teaching labs on the third floor. And there will be three big general-purpose classrooms on the second floor. Much needed, much desirable spaces, centrally located on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, all building systems will be brought up to date. \u201cMuch of it is vintage, for sure,\u201d says Streifel. \u201cThese are sorely needed improvements, addressing deferred maintenance, addressing energy-inefficient equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"The
The familiar path from the Historic Quad toward Pettengill Hall, in the background, will be closed for a year as Dana Chemistry Hall (outside the frame at left) is renovated. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But, as we like to remind you whenever the opportunity arises (and it\u2019s the last time for this metaphor, we promise!), you can\u2019t make an omelette without breaking eggs. The breakage here involves getting across campus, which will be less convenient during the year of Dana reconstruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest construction fence will enclose not just the chemistry building and adjoining land, but the busy walkway between Dana and Hedge Hall \u2014 a Hedge wall (as opposed to an herbaceous border) will actually form part of the site perimeter \u2014 and an entire lane of Alumni Walk across Dana\u2019s frontage. (At least we won\u2019t have so far to haul the Campus Construction Update stepladder, which lives in Lane Hall.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An additional length of fence will extend from the Dana perimeter to the brick wall where Ladd Library Plaza overlooks Dana, Hedge, and a service road. This will bar shortcuts past the work site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A May 17 view of Dana Chemistry Hall is punctuated by bright new foliage. (Doug Hubley\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So if you want to get from the Bonney Science Center, say, to the Puddle, your quickest routes will go between Hathorn and Dana or via the Library Quad. The ramp to Ladd Library will remain accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consigli Construction, the regional firm that has managed the building of Bonney and other Bates landmarks, remains as construction manager for Dana. Site work starts around July 1, and interior work will commence soon thereafter \u2014 general demolition and the removal of old mechanical and other systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Streifel explains, the Dana project has actually been underway for many months, in the form of an inventory and dispersal of supplies and equipment, some of which soon will be moved over to Bonney. More recently, the construction team has been conducting so-called coordination modeling: the creation of a detailed three-D virtual model of the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conjunction with GPS and wireless technology, this gives surveyors working in the physical building the information needed to mark, with impressive accuracy, the spots where pipes, ducts, and other utilities infrastructure and other features will be placed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post renovation, by the way, the building will be known simply as Dana Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we talk<\/strong>? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments (as long as they\u2019re not mean) about current, past, future, and phantasmagorical improvements. Please e-mail Doug Hubley<\/a>, with \u201cConstruction Update\u201d or \u201cIf you wore stilts, you could lose the stinkin\u2019 ladder\u201d in the subject line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doug Hubley is a musician and writer living in Portland, Maine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In yet another sign that Bonney Science Center construction is winding down, much of the construction-site fence is gone \u2014 notably, the stretch obscuring the Campus Avenue facade, the new building’s visual calling card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":139866,"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":[4,217,11009],"tags":[11942,1932],"class_list":["post-139841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-science-technology","category-the-college","tag-bonney-science-center","tag-campus-construction-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139841","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=139841"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172031,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139841\/revisions\/172031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}