Beardshear projects will close local sidewalks temporarily

A 150-foot section of original (from 1905) Iowa State utility tunnel, running beneath the sidewalk along the west side of Beardshear Hall, will be replaced this spring and summer. In anticipation, the west and north sides of the building are nearly surrounded by construction fencing, and the west door to Beardshear has closed until early August. The east, south and north doors remain in use.

Next month, work also begins on a second project to replace the Beardshear roof.

The tunnel project will remove a brick and concrete arched tunnel, about 5.5 feet high at the top of the arch and 5 feet wide, and replace it with a poured, reinforced concrete tunnel that's 7 feet high by 6 feet wide. New steam and (return) condensate and condensed air piping also will be installed to reliably provide steam service to Beardshear and other campus buildings for the next 100 years.

"Because the utility lines in the impacted tunnel section can be isolated by closing valves, steam/heat service in nearby buildings won't be impacted by the work," said project manager Sarah Witte, mechanical engineer in utility services. Additionally, noise at the site will be diminished during prep week and final exam week, she said.

North lawn provides project access

The lawn between Beardshear and the Hub, including part of the Anderson Sculpture Garden, is fenced off as an access route for crews and large trucks to the work area west of Beardshear. The fence is arranged to keep many of the sculptures outside of this zone, but all sculptures in this area were wrapped, boxed and/or surrounded with barriers to protect their surfaces and prevent any unintentional bumps. University museums director Lynette Pohlman said there are too many large pieces in the garden to move them all.

Electrical project begins after graduation

An electrical portion of the project will build two underground concrete vaults in the lawn west of Beardshear Hall and install underground conduits between the vaults and the north side of the building. Electrical service to Beardshear Hall will not be impacted by this work, which gets underway in May after graduation weekend. In a separate summer project, high voltage cables will be installed in these raceways to replace existing cables that route into and through the basement of Beardshear.

Coming in April: Roof replacement

Beginning in mid-April, the 27-year-old Beardshear roof -- everything except the dome -- will be replaced over three months. In daily sections of approximately 500-square-feet, crews will remove several layers of roof materials, the lowest of which contain asbestos, before laying the new roof, thus the need to work in a small area at a time. The new roof will be the university's standard, a synthetic rubber membrane.

Over the course of the project, a work area near the southwest and northeast corners of the building will be fenced off for a crane and dumpsters. The crane will be erected in the southwest corner in April and move to the northeast corner sometime in July. The work is expected to be completed by late September. Concurrent with the roof replacement, the project also will:

• Replace the protective polycarbonate covers above the two stained glass skylights in the Beardshear roof. The skylights themselves won't be impacted.
• Replace the mortar in the stone masonry that rises above the roof deck (west side masonry not accessible until the utility tunnel is completed and the sidewalk is in place).

Sidewalks impacted

Pedestrians who need to traverse the library quadrangle lawn still can do so on the east-west sidewalks immediately north of Carver Hall and immediately south of Morrill Hall/the Hub. Sidewalks between those two paths are at least partially closed until early August.