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BY ERIC MILES GLOVER

In print | Published April 7, 2005

The Parrish Hall renovations that began over the summer are on track to end this September. Although residents of the 124-year-old building will still encounter some construction work during the first month of classes, the building will be available for widespread use at the beginning of the semester.

Parrish Renovation Project Manager Susan Sayer said construction is scheduled to end in mid-September, though some projects may extend beyond the completion date. Students, however, will be able to use the student lounge and post office in the fall and WSRN will return to its fifth floor home in May or June to prepare for a fall broadcast.

Sayer said the Parrish renovations will increase the liveliness of the campus. “The new student lounge combined with a new post office will provide a communications center for students,” she said. “Students will be able to check their e-mail, pick up snail mail and check out CNN on TV.”

An informational meeting will be held within the coming weeks to alert students of the ongoing renovations in Parrish. Though aware of community complaints about construction, Sayer said the joy of the process was the accommodating nature of students and staff. “In a perfect world, all contractors would be perfect at controlling dust, I would have a week’s notice before all inconveniences, and all machinery would be silent,” she said. “Of course, this is not the case and those of us in facilities struggle daily to make the construction process work for everyone.”

Associate Dean for Student Life Myrt Westphal said she expects loud construction to be complete before September and that Skanska construction will be performing finishing touches to the building during that one-month period. Parrish Renovation Project Manager Susan Sayer was unavailable for comment.

Westphal acknowledged the difficulties faced by current Parrish residents over the course of this year. “I certainly sympathize,” she said. “Some of the students have had a really tough year.”

During the renovations, Parrish residents have tolerated construction between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on weekdays, including the demolition of a four-story wall in the center of the building.

In addition, some students went without water and heat for small time periods, while Parrish resident Christina Procacci ’06 had her ceiling collapse Saturday. “There was so much damage that they had to rip down part of my ceiling,” she said.

“I think it’s been an ongoing stressor for people to live in Parrish this year,” Westphal said.

Students, however, were not the only people affected by the construction. Westphal’s temporary first floor office flooded because of the accidental demolishing of a second floor bathroom water pipe. “It’s been hard,” she said. “I’ve had floods. I lost three keyboards. I lost a printer.”

In reviewing the year, Westphal said the entire construction process could have been smoother. “I think communication with the students could have been better from the beginning,” she said.

But she and students appointed to serve as resident assistants in Parrish this coming academic school year foresee no significant problems with construction or their abilities to cope.

“Since residential life is one of the three big parts of college, I think having a role in helping students make that transition to living at a college is a great opportunity,” Jayanti Owens ’06 said.

In her application to become a resident assistant, Owens expressly said she wanted to serve in a dormitory that housed first-year students and had a central location on campus. “I’m really happy about it,” she said.

For the students who might experience difficulty adjusting to the month-long construction, Owens said she will emphasize Parrish’s great location on campus and the fact that it houses the offices of important resources and individuals with which students should become acquainted, including the registrar, the Deans’ Offices and Career Services.

Owens said she plans to tell students on her hall about her experiences living on the second floor of Palmer. “I will emphasize how clean our bathrooms are and tell them stories about the horrendous Palmer bathroom,” she said.

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham ‘07, also a future Parrish RA, said he does not expect the September construction to cause as many inconveniences as the construction this year. "I don’t foresee any huge problems with … the construction," he said.

Instead, he expected students to choose to live in Parrish because of its renovations. While he wants construction to have less of an effect on student life, he is confident it will be completed on time. “I feel like they’re going to do their best to get the construction done by the beginning of next semester,” he said. “Parrish will definitely have a new breath of life.”

“I have a couple friends living there and they don’t have a problem,” Evan Buxbaum ’06 said.

In applying to become an RA on the third floor of Parrish, Buxbaum said he was unaware the construction might not be completed by the beginning of the school year. “It’s news to me that there’s still going to be construction going on in September,” he said.

Since construction is expected to last one month, however, Buxbaum foresees no serious problems. Instead, he looks forward to the community there, since he, Owens, Goldsmith-Pinkham and Valerie Maulbeck ’06 all applied to become Parrish RAs together. “All four of us are friends,” he said. “It should be a good group of people.”

In addition to changes in architecture, the Parrish renovations will bring about changes in housing distribution. Approximately 45 beds were lost in Parrish due to the renovations, Westphal said, but the construction of the Alice Paul Hall compensated for that loss and includes additional housing for students.

The renovated Parrish will feature a student lounge and post office on the ground floor where the Admissions Office was located. Admissions, which will relocate to the second and third floors of Parrish, will be accessible by use of elevators and a grand staircase at the center of the building.

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