Construction is an ambiguous term. In the past few years at Fairfield, it has been associated with mess, noise and seemingly unnecessary chaos, but the benefits, such as a newly-renovated library, have left us feeling satisfied and rewarded.
Well…sort of.
Now that the dust has finally settled and students have begun to steadily use the apartment complex or any renovated dorms, there have been some concerns regarding how carefully the construction was performed.
And our worries may be warranted, according to a construction laborer who did work for Harry Grodsky Corporation, the company employed by the university to install a new pipe line for the heating and cooling systems in Sept. ’99.
“I assisted in putting the underground pipe near Kostka and Claver and that was not done well at all,” he said. “It was just a real rush job. I worked 10 to 11 hours a day and even on Saturdays. And even then, the pipe was not installed properly.”
The worker, who requested to go unnamed, claimed that the trenches which hold the pipes, were not dug correctly, causing insufficient room for the water within the pipe to expand. The vault, which holds the expansion valve, would fill up with water and have no where to put it. The end result: a mixture of water and dust rising from the ground in the form of hot steam.
“It made the whole parking lot appear dirty and smoggy,” said Lou Scanzillo, ’03, a resident of Claver during his freshman year. “You didn’t want to breathe it in because you didn’t know what the heck it was.”
Junior Lynn Raimondo lived in Kostka her freshman year, and agrees with Scanzillo’s assessment. “Walking to class on any given day, we would suddenly enter the depths of underground sewage in a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie. Totally wild and outrageous, dude.”
Richard Taylor, assistant vice president of Campus Operations, said that the underground pipes are still being worked on, even now, and will be completed this summer. “The piping work still continues,” said Taylor. All the lines are being extended to the library, to Bannow Science Center and to the campus center. The work done this summer should be the final phase.”
Questions surrounding the new apartments have popped up, as well. According to Taylor. “Fairfield did take the lowest bid for both the apartments and any Kostka/Claver renovations. That’s standard industry policy.” Taylor does add, however, that all of the materials used were up to par with university standards and a testing agency was implemented to approve and watch over all the different phases of the construction.
“An independent testing agency was hired, separate from the university and the hired contractors, to test steel, make sure it was the proper size, test concrete as it was being poured,” said Taylor. “I received reports in regard to any deficiencies, which were few. The town of Fairfield has an excellent police and fire department and we were not allowed to open the building without their OK.”
Students, however, remain skeptical, especially because the construction was done in such a short amount of time. “It just seemed to me that they threw the apartments together really quickly,” said Scanzillo. Taylor does admit that the design and build of the apartment complex was a “fast tract.”
“We only had a year and a half to get it designed and built so we could accept the Class of 2004,” said Taylor. Due to the enormity of the class, the university felt even more pressure to build the apartments on time.
Although most students seem pleased with their decision to live in the apartments, which offer a more independent living-style than the dorms, some wonder if they are suffering the consequences of a hasty construction job.
“I really like living here, especially because there are four bedrooms, but I have noticed that the water pressure is really bad and the walls are really thin,” said Jarrod Bean, ’03. “The people next to us and below us complain all time that we are too noisy. I definitely think the walls could have been built more solidly.”
Junior Amanda Martignetti is very satisfied with her apartment, but is annoyed by the fact that her sink has cracked on several occasions. “I feel that they really designed the apartment well. They really just thought of so many details. It was, however, very frustrating to come back from a semester abroad to find a sink on the floor. And although they fixed it once all ready, it is broken again.”
“If it is a structural problem, then it should have been dealt with earlier,” said Martignetti.
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