Renovations are in full swing and the new halls are getting close to completion, said Mel Remus, plant engineering and planning director for Facilities Management.

“The new residence halls are moving very quickly. It’s really going fast now,” he said. “Plus there’s a lot of work going on inside the Towers.”

Building C (Gold Hall), nearest to Broomfield Road, almost finished, building A (Maroon Hall) should be ready for final inspections in mid-June, and building B (Kesseler Hall) should be ready by the end of June, Remus said.

“We’re doing some finishing work inside the buildings and are gearing up toward the end of June having most of the work done,” said Project Manager John Faccio.”

Faccio said the Towers parking lot will be completely restructured, resulting in three different lots when it is done — a south, southwest and north lot.

Faccio said the old entry and exit points to Broomfield Road will be eliminated to form a single entry/exitway in the center of the lot. The center entryway will lead to a circle drive in the front of Gold Hall and will have ponds on both sides of it, he said.

He said there will be an entryway to each of the three lots and there also will be a road behind 7-Eleven connecting the south and southwest lots. The southwest and north lots each will have an entryway on West Campus.

The southwest lot at Broomfield Road and West Campus Drive is getting close to completion, but not much has been done on the north, he said.

“We have one more parking lot to be developed on the north side, where the construction crews are,” Faccio said. “In the next couple weeks you’ll start to see trailers and construction crews disappear so we can get to that.”

Faccio said several different projects are going on inside the Towers right now as well, including renovation of the Carey Dining Commons.

“The demolition has been completed. We’re bringing in the new utilities, running sprinkler lines and putting up walls,” he said. “I’d say it’s about 25- to 30-percent complete.”

The old Carey and Troutman lounges are being demolished and renovated as well.

“We removed some ceiling, flooring, lighting fixtures, piping, electrical wiring and basically started from scratch,” Faccio said.

Similar renovations also have taken place in the Towers center core.

Faccio said the old reception desk will be replaced with a new, slightly smaller version. The mailboxes, have been moved off to small room entryways to each of the halls.

“It’s going to be quite a circulation point with all seven residence halls being there in the fall.”

Faccio said changing the domestic piping also is being done. The old galvanized piping will be replaced by new copper wire piping and will provide cleaner water.

“It’s going to provide much better service,” he said. “Many of the old pipes were leaking and increasing the costs of repairs.”

New fire protection sprinklers are being installed into all the rooms in the Towers as well as a state-of-the-art fire alarm system to match the system being installed in the new residence halls.

Faccio said everything is on schedule and the halls are scheduled for completion prior to mid-August.

There are a number of different budgets for all the work being done right now. The new residence halls have a budget of $33 million, he said. The rest of the combined work being done in the Towers has a budget of about $6 million, making the total cost of all work being done at the Towers estimated around $39 million.

“That $39 million includes construction costs, engineering and furnishing,” he said.