Campus Construction Update, March 28, 2025

This episode of Campus Construction Update features host Dave Blanks from University Communications in conversation with Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management Nick Katers. They discuss ongoing and upcoming construction projects on campus including the restoration of the campus bell tower chimes, the completion of the new women’s softball field and major infrastructure improvements such as road closures, new traffic lights and the continued development of the Innovation Campus. The episode provides insight into the challenges and progress of these projects highlighting efforts to enhance campus safety, sustainability and student facilities.

 

Transcript: 

Dave:
Hey, folks, how's it going? I'm Dave Blanks from University Communications back with another Campus Construction Update video edition, and I'm joined by Mr. Nick Katers, hello, the Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management. Welcome back to the studio, Nick.

Nick:
It's great to be here again.

Dave:
I'm glad you're here. Well, summertime's not upon us yet, it's not even spring yet, but we're talking about some of the summer projects that we have on tap and some of the things that we've checked off our list, one of which you can hear if you've come to campus.

Nick:
Absolutely.

Dave:

Yeah.

Nick:
So the bells are back by popular demand. We have repaired the chimes in the steam tower/bell tower, so you can hear them every hour on the hour. And we'll start mixing it up as we go forward here a little bit, so it'll get a little bit more exciting.

Dave:
What are we talking about, mixing it up?

Nick:
Oh, we've played music before.

Dave:
Okay.

Nick:
So I think we can gauge the mood of the campus and really be appropriate. Some good wins on some of these sports teams, we could get out there.

Dave:
Oh, sweet.

Nick:
Maybe not a little AC/DC, but something-

Dave:
Very appropriate for the bell tower. Exactly. Well, cool. Well, all right, so what happened to it? Why was it broken?

Nick:
It kind of wore out over a number of years, so a pretty expensive sound system was in there. And just from weather and everything else that it was faced with, it broke down right before COVID. And then we just never got around to replacing it. But this year, thanks to some initiative from my team, we've got the bells working again.

Dave:
I think our videographer, Malia, I don't know that she even knew that there were bells in the steam tower, so that's exciting. All right, well what else, Nick?

Nick:
I also want to just point out that the new women's softball field out at the old high school site App 105 is complete. And that's been a huge goal of ours to get this done for the start of the softball season. And the first women's home softball game is this Friday, the 21st of March at 12 o'clock. So we'll be able to sort of inaugurate our new stadium and it looks fantastic.

Dave:
It is beautiful.

Nick:
Yes.

Dave:
Yeah, it really is nice. And that's out on 105?

Nick:
Yeah, 105 where the old high school location was.

Dave:
Watauga High.

Nick:
Right. It's also outdoor tennis, the track and field complex, and now adding softball. Pretty soon we'll be adding the indoor tennis facility as well.

Dave:
Okay. Well, where does that go? It's kind of hard for this, but where is that in association?

Nick:
Between the track and field area and the new softball field? It'll be attached to the new field house that we have there. So this will be six indoor tennis courts. It'll be a fantastic facility.

Dave:
Sweet. Wow, that is wonderful.

Nick:
Yes.

Dave:
Well, cool. What else?

Nick:
So you've probably noticed we've got a lot of construction going on on campus right now.

Dave:
I noticed.

Nick:
We're at 43 projects, $350 million worth of placement, and it causes a lot of chaos across campus. One of the areas that's been hit the hardest is the Peacock AppalCart Circle. So we've been trying to slide it around and move it around in order to make it as safe as possible. So I think we've finally settled on not moving it out of the Peacock lot, but sliding it closer to River Street. We've now restricted the traffic to one way and we're putting the bus shelter in the middle of a circle, so I think it'll be much more efficient.
We won't have to have students with their backs up against the fence where they're up against the construction fence. So it'll stay this way for the rest of the semester and then we'll look at what we're going to do with it during the summer. But I anticipate until Peacock and Duncan are complete with their construction, we'll have to have that AppalCart stop there. And it'll be a while before those finish up. Duncan will finish up in the fall, the Peacock edition, which you can't even really visualize yet because it's just now starting to come out of the ground, that'll be done in the fall of '26.

Dave:
Okay, excellent. All right.

Nick:
In addition to that, we've had Bodenheimer closed for about three months as we've been working near Mountaineer Hall to replace steam, water, electrical, all the lines. Basically, everything we have that's infrastructure-wise runs underneath Bodenheimer, all the way up the hill.

Dave:
And that's at the intersection of Depot and River Street.

Nick:
Yes.

Dave:
If you keep going up-

Nick:
If you keep going up towards the Innovation Campus where the baseball field is.

Dave:
Right.

Nick:
So Bodenheimer is open again, I'm sure the students that live up in App Heights and stuff will be happy about that. They don't have to take the long detour. So that's open again. We're really getting finished now with the hurricane cleanup, which has been a monumental task for the last four months just to get everything cleaned up. So we're down to just our last few pieces right now. So you'll see a big van pull in by Rankin Science West. That'll be the temporary chiller that will provide air conditioning, essentially, until we get the permanent chiller in. They take about six to eight months to manufacture those things, so we're running a little bit behind. Walker Hall, the same thing. We're going to be getting its new chiller the first week in April, so hopefully, and I don't like to be hopeful in my business, but hopefully, we don't have too many days of hot weather so that we can get this chiller in the first week of April and nobody gets too hot.
A couple other things that were going on. We're going to be repairing the pedestrian walk between Way Hall and Newland Hall. There's a pedestrian crossing area there, it's one of the brick paths. It's like a wide walk on the West campus. With the construction of Way Hall, we went back and we repaired some of the infrastructure there. So that'll be closed down for a couple of weeks. And we have a number of road projects that are coming up this summer. We're going to close down the crossing by Hill Street, which is where the Holmes Convocation Center is, be installing a traffic light there so that it's safer for people to cross from the new parking deck across into Durham Park.

Dave:
Oh, that's good.

Nick:
And the same thing over by the tunnels. We're going to be working on some infrastructure there. So part of River Street will be closed down for a good portion of the summer. My goal is to have everything fixed for the fall.

Dave:
So there is going to be a light at the intersection of, it's Hill Street and River Street.

Nick: 
Hill Street and River Street, yes.

Dave:
Okay. Yeah. Wow.

Nick:
That's been a long time in coming.
It's a little bit close to the intersection to have a second light, but this will make that area much safer.

Dave:
Yeah, they don't want them to be too close. So you'll be able to push a button.

Nick:
Push a button and cross, yeah.

Dave:
Okay. All right, cool. Well, sorry to derail you there, but where were you headed next?

Nick:
Innovation Campus.

Dave:
All right, let's go up there.

Nick:
I thought we'd kind of transition to the top of the hill. Lots of work going on up there. We've had tons of detours and disruptions, but as you can see from most of anywhere you look on campus, the two new wind turbines have been put up.

Dave:
Very invisible.

Nick:
Yeah. And they're fantastic. They're big 600-kilowatt turbines. They're about four times the size of the old turbine that was up there, the little one that's still spinning.

Dave:
Still up there.

Nick:
Yeah, still up there. So we're going to energize these in about the next two weeks. So these two turbines will start producing energy for the campus and they're really the second part of the Innovation District energy system, which will provide energy to the whole top part of the campus. So about a megawatt of energy from those two wind turbines.
Then we have 90 geothermal wells that'll provide heating and cooling to all the buildings up there. And then the last part is we're going to be putting in a whole bunch of solar up on top of the hill too. It's a perfect signature to get a lot of sun up there. So that'll add the last piece of the electrical.

Dave:
Fantastic.

Nick:
At that point, the District energy system will be humming along and we'll be able to make a lot of our own energy for the campus.

Dave:
So the District energy building is finished now?

Nick:
So the District energy building is 90% complete. It's ready to start accepting inputs from the different components of the energy system. So we're about two or three months away from putting the hot water/cold water geothermal system through. But as soon as we crank up the wind turbines in about two weeks, it'll be able to start accepting energy there.
The District energy building is really going to be a really interesting place where we can do research, we can have student groups up there. You can walk into the lobby of the District energy building and see how much energy is being produced at any time of the day or night. And it'll show you in real time how much hot, cold water, how much electricity is being produced, and what we're using. So it's really designed not only to be a functional utility building, but also a learning laboratory.

Dave:
Fantastic.

Nick:
And then the other pieces of the Innovation Campus is the science technology building that's going in. So that had some setbacks because of shortages in funding, but we're back on track to get that thing restarted. So you'll see that building coming out of the ground this summer. And along with that, the faculty staff housing area is starting to move along pretty good. Also had some setbacks because of the hurricane and other things, the environmental conditions for this winter. I think we had four construction days in January. So the winters here really determine how much ground we lose on construction. But the goal is to have two of those new faculty staff housing buildings open for the fall.

Dave:
Okay. All right, that's great. I'm just picturing you with the energy system like Chevy Chase from National Lampoons. Yeah. Do you actually get to throw a switch, maybe?

Nick:
There is actually a ribbon-cutting switch that we will throw.

Dave:
All right.

Nick:
We'll throw it repeatedly.

Dave:
This is a symbolic switch?

Nick:
Yeah.

Dave:
Okay, I see. Well, that's cool. Well, that's good to hear. It sounds like things are moving along up there. What else do we want to cover today? How's Way?

Nick:
Oh, yeah. So let's talk about Way Hall. I think the art students are going to be very happy to know that Way Hall is on schedule. So Way Hall is at about 80% right now. We will finish the construction part of Way Hall in the June timeframe. That gives us two solid months over the summer to move the art students back out of the Duncan Octagon and into their new building. And I think they're going to be very happy with the condition and all of the brand new labs and facilities that they have in Way Hall. So Way Hall will be a success story, 100% open by fall.

Dave:
Man, that's going to be here so soon.

Nick:
So soon.

Dave:
Yeah. That's great. Well, I'll miss them being in Duncan because it's on my route to the office and I like just taking a little lap around the octagon because a lot of their work is out there. So yeah, it's cool seeing all that stuff.

Nick:
One of the best things about the renovated Way Hall is they never had an art gallery, now they will. So right as you walk in the big glass elevator column, just past that is going to be an art gallery where students can display all their work.

Dave:
That's awesome.

Nick:
Yeah, it's really going to be nice.

Dave:
What's going in the octagon then?

Nick:
So the octagon will be renovated as the second part of Duncan Hall. So once we get all of the students back in their home building, we'll go back and tackle the octagon. The intent is to open it up a little bit more so that we have two larger classrooms in there. Something along the lines of 100-plus seats.

Dave:
When you say, "We'll go back and tackle the octagon," it sounds pretty epic.

Nick:
It is.

Dave:
Well, y'all have done so much work and there's more to be done, but I appreciate the update. If there's anything else you want to cover today?

Nick:
No, I think we're good for today.

Dave:
No?

Nick:
Yeah.

Dave:
Well, Nick, thank you very much. Thanks, everyone, for listening. And if you do want to reach out to us, too bad, I don't know...

Nick:
We'll take suggestive topics.

Dave:
No, you can always email me. blanksdr@appstate.edu. Yeah, and if there's anything that you would like for us to cover, please feel free. Until next time, I'm Dave Blanks. This has been the Campus Construction Update.

Nick:
Thank you.