Campus Construction Update, July 16, 2024

Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management Nick Katers and Vice Provost of Academic Program Development and Strategic Initiatives Mike McKenzie join University Communications' Dave Blanks in studio to discuss progress on the second-floor renovation of App State's Hickory campus, as well as the finishing touches that are being applied to the Holmes Drive Parking Deck.

 

 

Transcript

 

Dave Blanks

Hey, folks, how's it going? I'm Dave Blanks from University Communications. Back with another Campus Construction Update. Today I'm joined in studio by Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management, Mr. Nick Katers and Vice Provost of Academic Program Development and Strategic Initiatives, Dr. Mike McKenzie for a discussion about the App State Hickory campus. Guys, thank you both so much for being here today. I appreciate it.

 

Nick Katers

Thanks, Dave.

 

Mike McKenzie

Thanks for having us.

 

Dave Blanks

So the topic at hand is the Hickory Campus. Hickory opened up to its inaugural class of mountaineer students on August 21st, 2023, and now phase two renovations are underway. So that's our topic for today. So I don't know if Nick, you want to start it out. This is phase two. Obviously phase one is complete. How many phases in the Hickory campus.

 

Nick Katers

So you know, we've probably we're probably looking at five phases. Initially we had a very generous appropriation from the state legislature for $41 million, and it was spread out over four years. So we realized that we couldn't just attack the entire building at the same time, and we would have to phase the building according to floor. So there are five above ground floors. So there will be five phases to the entire project. The good news here is that the $41 million appropriation is no longer spread out over four years. It's only spread out over two. So we'll be able to attack the second floor, in good order and more quickly than we had previously anticipated. So right now we're in Phase 2a, which, you know, Phase 2 is assume the second floor. Phase 2a is a very small improvement to the second floor. We're really focused on the addition of three new classrooms on the second floor. There's essentially a computer lab, a cyber security lab and a general chemistry lab. So I can let Mike kind of tell what went into the selection of those three. But again, we were working off the initial funding model, which didn't have a lot of money this year. And so we can talk about the future phases as well.

 

Dave Blanks

Sure. Yeah. Mike, speak to the classrooms.

 

Mike McKenzie

Sure. So as Nick mentioned, we have three new spaces that we're really excited about because there's a big need for them, frankly, based on the academic interest of the students there and where we see the future going with Hickory. So space one, as Nick mentioned, is a cybersecurity lab and Appalachian State last year had approval to offer a standalone bachelor's in cybersecurity. We have a cybersecurity lab that we're building in Boone. And now we also have one in Hickory. And what really makes the cyber lab cool is we've worked with Dr. Scott Hunsinger and his colleagues and other faculty to really design this to be state of the art. They told us what works for them from a, you know, a student experience and kind of where we landed.... the best way to describe it, I would say there's these pods where students work together and there's a control room where the faculty member can do things like send attacks at the students in real time, they have to kind of fend these off. And one of the biggest things that I learned very early on in talking to our IT folks is because of the nature of what cyber does, it is really important that they, in simplest terms, have their standalone computer network. You don't want to just use regular computers. So they kind of needed their own network to be able to do this. So they have this unique space that really is designated for cyber security. The other two spaces that we're really excited about that are opening this fall... one is a computer lab, and that space kind of doubles between when it's not in use as a classroom, students can obviously go and complete their work, but a lot of the programs that we've had interest in are, frankly, College of Business courses, and a lot of those require some technical computer programs and things that a student wouldn't just have on their standalone laptop at home, for example. So, having this lab with the specifications that the faculty need to teach these upper level courses to the students, and then the final space that we're really excited about for fall is this kind of general science lab. And so, you know, we do have a large number of students who are taking general education courses down there. Obviously a component in every gen ed is there's a science course, and we have not been able to teach a lab in person. You know, there are some online labs that we've been able to do, but we don't have a way to teach a lab where students can be hands-on. So, this is the first hands-on lab in the Hickory building. So students can actually take that science lab in person and get that hands-on experience that they like. And again, this lab in particular is really made for the intro courses. Intro to biology based on the location on where it is. And, you know, specs that a lab would need in terms of airflow and things like that. We'll have an opportunity to build some more advanced labs in additional parts of phase two. But early on, Phase 2a, we're really excited to have that computer lab, the cyber lab, in the intro to bio lab space.

 

Dave Blanks

Fantastic. So when are the completion dates for Phase 2a?

 

Nick Katers

So Phase 2a really got started in May and it didn't offer us a lot of time to get everything ready for the fall. but we'll have those three classrooms ready for the August start of the semester. And then the rest of the second floor is sort of broken down into two sub phases. We may not keep it that way now that the money has been sort of pushed forward in the queue a little bit. So as soon as we finish with Phase 2a, which is done, fall of 24, we’ll immediately go into 2b, which is the rest of the north side of the building. So think approximately there's 7 to 8 new classrooms, some study spaces, some office spaces, some additional student lounge space. Then Phase 2c is the rest of the second floor. We're really shooting for fall of 25, to have the rest of the second floor done. In fall of 2026 for phases 3, 4 and 5. Those are smaller floor plates so we should be able to move through the tower pretty quickly.

 

Dave Blanks

Sounds good. All right. So even though Phase 2 is underway, that doesn't mean the first floor hasn't had some changes. I understand there have been. Nick, if you want to speak to those.

 

Nick Katers

Yeah, sure. I mean, we're continuing to go back in and update the first floor. The wayfinding has been drastically improved. The grab and go areas, the vending areas. The most exciting part of the updates to the first floor, though, is the addition of the coffee kiosk, which will be in the Student Commons area on the north side that will be open for students all day long to not only get coffee, but there's some hot vending machines in the area and they're going to have some other limited offerings as well. So, one of the big complaints about students there is that there's not enough opportunities for food. So we're addressing this immediately, and we're continuing to improve the classroom environment on the first floor. We have 11 classrooms on the first floor and each subsequent semester, as we learn lessons from the previous one, they're being updated. On the ground floor, again we have the addition of the student Commons student Union game room area, which is adjacent to the cafeteria. The gym is open and the capabilities in the gym are improving every year. We’re getting as we get more students. Eventually the cafeteria will reopen as well.

 

Mike McKenzie

Yeah. Nick, I think you're really selling yourself short a little bit with some of the renovations. I know you threw in that student lounge space, and I think the student lounge is a great example of where, you know, you and your team have been receptive to student requests. And, you know, when we originally planned this first floor, there's these huge spaces. We thought students would use this as their congregating and study space. And while they study in that space a lot, the message we heard from students was, hey, I just need a hangout space. I feel like I need to be quieter here, for example. And so we used that information and Nick and his team built this nice little student lounge on the first floor next to the cafeteria.

 

Nick Katers

With a lot of help from Student Affairs.

 

Mike McKenzie

With student affairs. Yeah. They interviewed students and asked what they wanted. And as Nick said, there's a pool table down there, there's a skee-ball table, there's some video games. If you go down there, you'll hear students playing their music. So it is more of that, like, hey, right now, like I'm taking a break from study. This is my nonacademic space. And I think naively, maybe when we built it, we thought the common spaces on the first floor would do that. And like I said, the students kind of told us that, no, we need this dedicated space for that.

 

Dave Blanks

They're too respectful.

 

Mike McKenzie

They are! And so if you go to the ground floor, you will always see students in there just honestly having a good time. I'm hoping to get down there and, you know, challenge some of our students in Mario Kart.

 

Dave Blanks

Oh heck yeah. Oh that sounds great.

 

Nick Katers

And we've also got some outdoor spaces that they asked for during the semester. So tell me about that. So we've added some, some hammock stands out there, some additional picnic tables so that they can hang out outside. They asked for it and, you know, we were able to put in some pretty nice outdoor spaces as well for the students to hang out between classes.

 

Dave Blanks

Nice. Yeah, those are great updates for the first floor. I didn't realize I didn't realize those were happening.

 

Nick Katers

Dave, I think it's probably a good opportunity to take a little bit of a history shot at the building, too, and what we've done to improve the building, specifically from an energy standpoint. The building is 50 years old in most of the areas right now, so as soon as we purchased it in the fall of 2021, we immediately engaged an energy audit team from Duke Energy and a couple of other providers in the area to come and take a good, hard look at what are the immediate fixes we can make to the building we went through. The building had old style fluorescent lights throughout the 225,000 square foot area. So we've been upgrading all the lights. We've re-lamped everything to new LEDs. We have improved the control system so that the HVAC system runs more efficiently. We've also gone through we've replaced the roof with a new high energy efficiency roof. We've even installed the posts for future solar panels so that we'll be able to add solar to the building as the funding sources allow.

 

Dave Blanks

Great.

 

Nick Katers

In this coming year, we'll be installing EV charging stations on the north side parking lot...

 

Dave Blanks

Oh, I didn't know that.

 

Nick Katers

...with a federal grant opportunity. So yeah, we're pretty excited about that because this will increase drastically the number of EV charging stations in the area.

 

Dave Blanks

You know how many we're going to have?

 

Nick Katers

I think we're looking at six new EV charging stations right now. And they'll be…we're looking at a mixture of Cat two and Cat three chargers. The super chargers for Teslas and the Cat two for all the rest of the types of vehicles that are out there. So a lot of continuous improvement to make the building more energy efficient.

 

Dave Blanks

Oh that's fantastic. Good to hear. So we mentioned earlier before we got started on what Phase 2 was that there are five phases. So maybe we should give a brief explanation of what all those phases are. We've said it before, but it bears repeating. What are we looking at? What are all the phases consisting of?

 

Nick Katers

Sure. Again, Phase 1 was the majority of the first floor and the ground floor. That was the priority to get us open in August of 23. And we're moving on to Phase 2 with the intended completion date of the fall of 25. Then, as we look at the third, fourth and fifth floor, we're still in the programming phase of what we're going to do with those. We know immediately that we're going to reconfigure them for educational purposes. Much more emphasis on additional offices. That has been a constraining point for the first floor. We have a number of offices, but not for the faculty and staff that have to work in this building. So we know immediately that the fourth floor is going to get a lot more offices. The third floor, we're really sort of still in the discovery phase of what the programming is going to require. There's about 35,000ft² of usable space on each of the third, fourth and fifth floor. So there's a lot of potential to add small seminar rooms. additional offices, and even potentially 1 or 2 larger classrooms on each of those floors or specialty academic space. The fifth floor is really B.B Dougherty of Hickory. So that's the administrative space for the administration here.

 

Mike McKenzie

And we're taking this opportunity as we go beyond phase 2a, so 2b and 2c and Phase 3 to really look at the academic offerings. Dave, as you mentioned, this building's only been open for a year. So we're still learning a little bit about the student interest in Hickory. The goal when we opened this building was to bring the Appalachian State experience down to Hickory, but not replicate every single thing we have, every single program. What are the citizens of Hickory interested in? Understanding that. We are starting to learn a little bit more about the majors that are of interest in Hickory and student behaviors. So, we're using that information and working with our faculty and our associate deans to help design these classrooms. You know, they want flexible classroom space. They want classrooms where seats can move around and students can congregate together and then spread out. They want spaces where we can have a small seminar room and maybe you hit a button and the wall moves and now it's a bigger classroom. We’re a little bit limited there because of ceiling height and some structural beams and things like that. but we know at some point we need classrooms that are going to hold, say 50 students or 48 students and so we're working around designing, you know, we need X number of classes that hold 20 people on X number of classrooms that may be hold 50 and as Nick mentioned, maybe we need seminar spaces for for some of these upper level classes. So we're really using student information from the first year and seeing where students are returning and their interest areas to design these spaces. Because, you know, this is our one shot. Right now we have a blank slate. Oh yeah. As we see if these are the programs that students are really demanding, we need to make sure the building and the classrooms meet the needs of that. I mean, you come in, Boone, you know, when you're in the College of Business. You know, when you're in the College of Ed. Here, it's a little bit more blended, but we have to make sure that the spaces are going to meet the needs of the students and faculty we have there. So we're really using, you know, this fall and spring to kind of master plan Hickory out in a much more, you know, 360 degree view to make sure we're where we need to be.

 

Dave Blanks

Measure twice. You know?

 

Mike McKenzie

Yes, yes, exactly.

 

Dave Blanks

Yeah. Well, so I'm curious. I know, like, face to face with teachers actually speaking with students, was there a study done? Whose job is it to actually go and hunt down? Like, what is it we need here? It's so sprawling. There's so many possibilities for what it could be.

 

Mike McKenzie

Right.

 

Dave Blanks

So how do we figure out what it should be?

 

Mike McKenzie

Great question. And I think there's a couple answers here. So before we opened we actually met with, you know, I think it was 50 business leaders that the Chamber of Commerce helped set us up with, as well as community colleges down there. And so we did a lot of... and high school students too! We did a lot of interviewing them and asking, you know, what do you think it is Hickory needs? Student support those kinds of things. So we understood, you know, what what things do students need access to that maybe we don't think about as much in Boone? Since we've opened, while we're still talking to businesses and things like that obviously, now we have a couple hundred students in the building every day, and Student Affairs has actually done a great job. So credit to JJ’s shop with Monica Reed down there leading these interview sessions with students where she'll have a topic for the day and she'll meet with a group of ten students and say, hey, you know, what is it you think the building needs? Or, you know, what is it you're most interested in? And as Nick mentioned, that's where the student lounge idea kind of came from. Students mentioned that. So it's a combination of trying to understand the future of Hickory and where it's going and working with the business leaders there, but also talking with the people who day to day are in the building because their lives are impacted by that. So really bringing those two pieces together to help develop a plan for Hickory moving forward.

 

Dave Blanks

Well, that sounds like some exciting changes going on down there. And it sounds like progress is moving on. Nick, that’s not the only thing we're doing around Appalachian. I know, there are many construction projects. I did notice that the parking deck at Holmes, which on the next episode it'll be all things parking and traffic. Yeah. You guys will also come back. Mike and Nick, I believe both of you guys will be here to talk about just kind of the changes that people can expect to see when they're returning to campus for this next semester after the summer's over. Right. Was that the plan?

 

Mike McKenzie

Correct.

 

Dave Blanks

Okay. Yeah, that'll be a good plan. But yeah. Parking deck looking good. I mean, there's plants getting planted. It's looking like the very final touches are happening on it.

 

Nick Katers

Absolutely. This has been a very successful project with a new partner, New Atlantic Construction, who came in and has done a fantastic job of giving us exactly what we were looking for. So the parking deck is in the final phases. It's wrapping up in the next two weeks. Like you said, we're seeing asphalt get put down, plants are going in. We're looking at opening the parking deck for traffic as the move in week begins on the 12th of August. Okay. And there will be a ribbon cutting.

 

Dave Blanks

I was going to ask. Do you have any idea on that?

 

Nick Katers

Yeah, I think the ribbon cutting right now is scheduled for the 22nd of August at 4 p.m. We'll have cars in the deck for the ribbon cutting, and it'll be exciting. I'm extremely proud of the work the App State team has done on this parking deck. We have really delivered this one. It's going to be a huge benefit to that side of campus in terms of adding 600 new parking spaces.

 

Mike McKenzie

And Dave, I think, you know, speaking for two basketball season ticket holders right here, we're really excited about that as well, because there is an entrance directly from the deck into the Holmes Center. And if you've, you know, basketball, you get some weather sometimes in the winter and to be able to do that, I think it'll be great not just for selfishly Nick and I, but people that maybe don't want to be exposed to the elements can walk right into Holmes Center from from the Holmes Center parking deck.

 

Dave Blanks

So I'm sure Coach Kerns is happy about that.

 

Mike McKenzie

Coach Kerns is really excited.

 

Dave Blanks

Big changes. So much to talk about, guys. I appreciate you taking the time today. I know you're very busy and we'll do it again. Thank you. Nick Katers and Mike McKenzie thank you both.

 

Mike McKenzie

Thanks.

 

Nick Katers

Thanks, Dave.