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Students may have noticed many changes made to the University of Maine campus during the past few months. There are also many more to come, according to Facilities Management Executive Director Elaine Clark’s to-do list.
Associate Executive Director of Facilities Management Geremy Chubbuck had some difficulty when it came time to narrow the field of potential changes to be made to the campus. With approximately 60 projects on the list, Chubbuck’s favorites made the final cut.
New flooring in Little Hall and new paint jobs in rooms 110, 120, 130 and 140 brighten up the classrooms and a newly reinforced awning extends the roof on the side of the building facing the mall. Chubbuck estimated the total cost of the improvement to Little Hall at $210,000, the most expensive of the summer’s improvements.
Chubbuck said the most noticeable summer facelift is the rearrangement of roadside parking along Sebago Road. The revamped Sebago Road now fully complies with state regulations prohibiting head-in parking spaces on roadways.
A sidewalk from Merrill Hall now continues to Hitchner Hall, with three added handicapped parking spaces parallel to the road. The diagonal parking was removed and trees and grass now occupy some of the space. The importance of pedestrian and vehicular traffic safety prioritized this change, Chubbuck said, citing an estimated cost of $130,000 for the two projects.
Major interior projects included renovations to North Stevens Hall and approximately 170,000-square-feet of new carpeting in the Raymond H. Fogler Library.
Rooms 235 and 237 in North Stevens Hall were in a state of crumbling disrepair when massive overhauls took place. The neglected condition of the Stevens complex – encompassing the North, South and Central buildings – spawned a Facebook group last spring determined to draw attention to the rapid deterioration of one of the university’s oldest buildings.
Chubbuck explained the north wall of the building had to be re-waterproofed and re-pointed, a process where the mortar between the brickwork is removed and reapplied to more effectively repel the elements. Inside the classrooms, walls received new sheetrock, plaster, and paint under replaced wainscoting, Clark said.
The bottom floor of the Memorial Union will see many changes as well. The Cubby, a new addition to campus that processes packages formerly sent to students’ dorms, will move with the post office to occupy what is currently the Computer Connection. The Computer Connection will be dividing its services between two new locations; display items will move to the University Bookstore, and support staff and inventory will move to the lower level of the current Student Services office.
The upper level of that space will become an e-mail cluster to replace the one that was eliminated in summer renovations. The Student Services office will occupy the space left vacant when the post office moves. Finally, the space that was formerly e-Sports will be leased by the University Credit Union.
Other changes include the removal of a propane tank storage bunker outside of the Alfond Arena and the construction of a storm water pool on Belgrade Road that will divert runoff and decrease erosion into the Stillwater River. A new walkway graces the south side of Hilltop Commons and several ditches received summer makeovers, including one in Facilities Management’s own backyard near the Depot and another near the Student Recreation and Fitness Center.
All projects were funded through grants, depreciation allocations, and in the case of the Hilltop Commons walkway, leftover funding from the UMaine Recreation Center construction project budget. Clark said projects using allocated depreciation funds must be UMaine president-approved and be renewal-type projects, rather than an addition or installation.
All projects are Facilities Management-recommended and sometimes must be approved by the Campus Planning Committee, a board in charge of preserving historical and environmental aspects of the UMaine campus, according to its website.
Looking ahead, Facilities Management plans to make many upgrades to the Alfond Arena, contingent on receipt of a grant; install air conditioning in major areas of Fogler Library; renovate Stewart Commons to accommodate both the Studio Art and New Media departments; replace a boiler at the Steam Plant; and construct a 3600-square-foot pole barn next to the Mahaney Dome to replicate a lunar habitat for the electrical engineering department.
