UR Facilities & Operations will be replacing entrance doors on several River Campus buildings during UR’s spring break. The repairs are slated for the external entrance to the tunnels in Dewey Hall, the main entrance doors of Hylan Hall on the Science Quad, and the first-floor entrance to Hutchison Hall that faces Wallis Hall. Construction is scheduled to begin on Saturday, March 7 and continue as necessary, ending on Sunday, March 15.
Assistant Director of Facilities Kevin Gibson said that the replacements are part of Facilities’ routine maintenance of River Campus property. According to Gibson, the selected doors are “badly weathered” and have had “issues requiring ongoing maintenance.” Gibson added that the doors were selected based on their “age, location, condition and history of service requests [and] required repairs.”
“The new installations will feature upgraded hinge mechanisms, upgraded insulated glass, upgraded lock cylinders and the addition of card access for improved security,” Gibson said. Despite the increased security measures, Gibson noted that “there are no immediate safety or security concerns regarding the doors.”
Students have expressed disdain in the past about the difficulty in opening the main doors of Hylan Hall and the first-floor entrance doors of Hutchison Hall (near Hubbell Auditorium). Gibson stated that, in addition to the concerns of weathering and wear, the heavy pedestrian traffic through these sets of doors was a factor in their selection. “Condition and history of maintenance,” not location, remain the “primary drivers” of the decision to replace, Gibson said.
An email from Facilities stated that the noisiest part of the construction will be on Saturday, March 7 and Monday, March 9 for the Hutchison Hall doors, and between March 9 and 10 for the Hylan Hall doors. These construction periods will include “loud drilling” and “cutting of the metal frames.”
Facilities’ projects are numerous and varied, and door replacements occupy only a small portion of the time Facilities devotes to both long-term projects and daily maintenance. “Door replacement projects fall into the ‘building envelope repair and replacement’ category of [Facilities’] capital budget,” Gibson stated. “Other items in this category are window replacements, elevator modernizations, masonry repointing and roofing.”
Gibson noted that Facilities “always appreciates hearing input and feedback from our students” and mentioned the Walk for Facilities event, held in November 2014, in which “students and administrators had the opportunity to meet and discuss the condition of our facilities and potential upgrades by touring areas of our campus.” Gibson added, “We are excited to be making significant advances in the upgrade of [the doors] and other items on our campus.”
Ransom is a member of
the class of 2017.
