With end of the school year approaching fast, and the room draw process finished, the finishing touches are being placed on North Village II. According to Physical Plant, the dorm will be finished in early July and will be fully ready for students to move in this fall.
“Essentially the interior is about 80 percent complete,” said Brian Gillette, the associate director of physical plant for construction, in an email. “The remaining interior items to be completed are the painting, flooring, bedroom door installation, lighting, et cetera.”
Another unfinished aspect of the residence hall’s interior is the connection of the geothermal heating system to the building. The decision to use geothermal heating by the college has set the building on track to receive a LEED Silver certification come July. The system consists of 50 wells that are 500 feet deep each and will provide heating for the entire building.
The decision to go geothermal has found favor with many students as well.
“I think North Village II will be a better standard of living than the dorms are,” said future resident Alex Berry, ’12. “I think that the geothermal heating is a good step up for us with environmental change. And the fact that there’ll be air conditioning is nice, too.”
After the interior projects are finished, the work on the outside of the building will commence.
“The exterior has all the landscaping to be completed,” Gillette said. “The front and rear porticos [need to be installed] and the bridge will be installed in the rear of the building.”
The porticos on North Village II will consist of columns that start in the middle of the building, and then extend down the center of the building to the ground. They are used for both structural support and aesthetics.
Since construction is nearly complete, future residents have been given the opportunity to tour a portion of the facility.
“When we went to the rooms, they were pretty bare,” Berry said. “There was no furniture and the painting still needed to be done, but you could imagine what they were going to look like.”
In addition to North Village II, the college has some smaller maintenance projects in store over the summer break.
“We will have a few campus upgrades this summer,” Gillette said. “We will be installing more of the brick walk to connect the Brooks walk with the walk in front of Carr Hall, There will also be other various maintenance projects.”
Once North Village II is completed and the fall semester begins, the college will move on to their next big construction project: the renovation of Carr Hall.
