As contractors approach the completion of the new HEDCO Education Building, they are taking precautions to keep students safe around the expanding construction site.
The sidewalk between East 16th and 18th Avenues along Alder Street will be closed through June 2009 to keep pedestrians and bicyclists away from the College of Education construction zone while the last stages of the project are completed. According to the college, the project is in its sixth and final phase, which began in January.
For students and faculty whose classes have been moved around campus during the construction, the end will likely come as a relief. As different areas of the college have been renovated, faculty, staff and students have had to move classes and offices to accommodate construction.
Project Manager Janet Lobue said the project has involved renovating four buildings and constructing one new one. The entire venture has cost $48.1 million, according to the University office of Campus Planning and Real Estate. Money came from private donations and state grants. The HEDCO Building is named after a California-based non-profit whose president, Dody Jernstedt, donated $10 million to the college.
The four buildings receiving renovations are the Education East Wing, University High, Education Addition and Clinical Services, Lobue said.
Workers have finished the renovations on the University High and Education East Wing facilities, Lobue said. The renovations to the Clinical Services building aren’t complete, but half of the Education Addition building is finished, she said. Faculty and students are using the other half of that building.
Excavation on the project began in August 2007 and is on track to be finished in early summer 2009, Lobue said.
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