By now, everyone’s noticed the fences guarding tree stumps around Green River’s ST buildings. The trees were leveled over spring break to make room for what will soon stand in place of these old buildings.
All four ST buildings are scheduled to be demolished by the beginning of May. In their stead, a three story, 80,000 square foot building will become the new and improved campus center for the Business, English, Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences departments, replacing the HS, SS, and BI buildings. That will make the new building thousands of square feet larger than the currently standing ST buildings.
This is the culmination of what has been in the planning for nearly a decade now. In 2001, Green River made a major update to its master plan, coming to the conclusion that the ST buildings, which have stood here since the 1960s, had reached the end of their lifespan.
That was the start of a brainstorming session that would eventually lead the school to land on this project. Official design for the new building then began in 2007.
The plan is to have the replacement building finished and fully operational by the start of fall quarter of 2011. A lot needs to be done before it gets to that point though.
It will have a unique design, separated into two main sections, which will be conjoined by a large glass atrium in its center. Students will be able to pass straight through the atrium to the Tech Center on their way to classes or the Lindbloom Center to take a break from classes.
Overhead, inside the atrium will be a large sky bridge connecting the two sides of the building.
One side will be three stories tall, full of lots of new classrooms. The other side will be two stories tall, serving as the new location for professors’ offices in those departments.
The trees on the site were removed over spring break, when the campus was most vacant, to minimize the risk of endangering anyone’s safety, reduce foot traffic jams around the site, and to avoid allowing intrusive noise to distract faculty and students hard at work.
Sam Ball, dean of instruction for capital projects explained that they tried to disturb as little of the natural surrounding environment as possible in planning this project, but that, “on this campus, you simply can’t avoid cutting some trees.”
He said that essentially, they had a choice between cutting down a little more than 30 trees or perhaps hundreds or more, so they chose the first option.
By reconstructing a building on a site that had already been built upon, this project will save a lot of trees, according to Ball.
“That’s a very green approach,” he said.
In addition to minimizing the amount of trees that had to be cut, some trees were transplanted to new locations instead of allowing them to be cut.
Members of Green River’s Natural Resources Department helped mark the trees that needed to be taken down. After they were cut, they were used to bring in money that would go to Facilities to help lessen demolition costs.
Out with the old...In with the new
Published: Monday, April 20, 2009
Updated: Monday, June 28, 2010
Be the first to comment on this article!