Bell Hall residents relocated while renovations continue
Extensions needed for Bell Hall renovations required 192 students to relocate to Sanford Hall and Bobcat Village for approximately the first month of school.
Bell renovations were scheduled for completion by the beginning of this semester, but now students are tentatively expected to move into Bell Sept. 29.
Bruce Harshbarger, vice president for student affairs and dean of students, attributed part of the delays to complications associated with renovating older buildings.
“When you take buildings that are almost 100 years old and start to take them apart, you run into things there was no way to anticipate,” Harshbarger said.
According to Paul Jahr, director of University Housing, delays also came as a result of additions during renovations. This included the recent decision to house the Honors & Scholars Program in Bell instead of Sanford.
“A classroom was enlarged to a capacity of 24, and anytime you do a big project you change things here and there,” Jahr said. “When you make a modification to existing plans that impacts a lot more — it changes lighting, air flow, electrical distribution — nothing is simple, and the bottom line is we wanted the best possible product for the men and women who were going to be in there.”
Chris Davis, project superintendent for Garbutt/Christman, said delays also came from complications associated with the renovation.
“One thing that happened was when we first got in here, all the existing floor joists were all rotted and had been compromised,” Davis said. “Wherever current bathrooms are, the new ones are in the same place; it just had to be reworked.”
Bell now has a front parlor with Internet hookups, study lounges, a recreational room with two flat screen televisions, couches, a pool table and a ping pong table. The residence hall also has a brand new elevator, which replaced the old northeast stairway.
Davis projected the renovations, which began in May of 2005, will be completed by Sept. 15.
Harshbarger said Master Van out of Macon will provide moving services for students moving from their current campus location to Bell Hall in September.
Sophomore Amy Carter is temporarily living in the 600 building at Bobcat while awaiting Bell Hall’s reopening.
“I’m really excited to move to Bell, it’s just kind of an inconvenience to have to move twice, but I like it at Bobcat too,” Carter said. “I’ve unpacked most of (my belongings) but I don’t want to unpack, just ’cause I’m going to have to do it again in a month.”
Carter said she selected Bell Hall for its proximity to campus, as well as her role in the Honors Living & Learning Community.
Despite what some consider an inconvenience, Jahr said it was never a consideration to keep students in Sanford and Bobcat Village instead of moving them to Bell. He does not anticipate any problems with the move.
“They contracted for, specifically, the Bell Hall experience,” said Jahr.
“We have a lot of experience doing mid-semester moves.”
In fact, GCSU University Housing has provided programs for other universities on successful mid-semester moves.
Students were placed either in Sanford or the 600 building at Bobcat following the floor plans that will exist in Bell Hall. This way, Resident Assistants are placed with the same students, and roommates and suitemates will remain the same.
“We want to promote a setting that will promote roommate and floor relationships as much as we can,” Jahr said.
The 600 building at Bobcat was vacant and available for Bell students because it would otherwise have been closed this semester due to insufficient contracts to open a sixth building at Bobcat.
Sanford Hall was also not intended for residents for the same reason.
“We had anticipated leaving it unoccupied for the fall at least,” Jahr said. “With the opening of Bell, we didn’t have the demand for it.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Sep 1 2006. Filed under News.
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