After several years of planning and waiting for approvals, the time has finally come for the groundbreaking of the University of Hartford’s planned libraries project on the Mortensen Library. With most of the plans now solidified, a groundbreaking on the project is set to begin in mid-May later this year after the commencement ceremonies.
The Libraries Master Planning Process began in 2012 in collaboration with Sasaki Associates, a Massachusetts-based interdisciplinary planning and design firm. Over the years, planning committee has gathered feedback from students, faculty and staff in the University community. But because the planning process began four years ago, the announcement of plans for Phase I of the libraries project came as a bit of a surprise for many students when it was unveiled in Oct. 2015.
The Libraries Master Planning Committee then offered four sessions near the end of the fall 2015 semester to give students the opportunity to engage in small group discussions about the renovation plans. Some of the main concerns were with issues of timing of the construction and how it would be dealt with.
Most of the exterior construction will take place over the summer months when the library is at minimal use. Students can expect construction to continue into the fall and with the building enclosed by the end of the semester. This would include the completion of a glass wall addition to the north end of the building.
Interior construction will also begin in June and will happen in phases, meaning that some sections or even floors of the library might become unavailable for use for a temporary period of time.
Once the exterior construction is completed and the building is weather-tight, the interior construction of new additions can be started. This would include making space for the Allen Library to be moved to the first floor of the library, and the open-air balconies on the upper level that will overhang the middle level.
The goal is to not close the entire library down and should only happen if crews run into an unexpected problem.
“We had wanted to start earlier, but we had a lot of design changes,” Norm Young said, who is the University’s associate vice president of facilities planning and management. “We maybe could have started a little earlier, but why? At this point, the timing works out without disturbing the library.”
Other delays came because of cost issues. There has been a sudden shortage of glass, so the price has risen. This also caused a change in the type of glass that will be used for the back wall. The original plans called for a curtain wall that would use stronger glass and would take less time to build.
Instead they had to settle for storefront glass that is used pretty much everywhere. It’s cheaper, but will take a little longer to build because more support will be needed to be added.
“I think we have done so much homework on this that I can’t even imagine something happening,” Young said. “The library is pretty well mapped out and engineered at this point. It’s hard for me to think of where there might be a stumbling block.”
The budget for the renovation project is about $10.6 million. The University refinanced last June and freed up $12 million with $7 million going to the libraries project and $5 million going to the future Gengras Student Union renovation. The additional $3.6 million for the libraries project comes from a series of donations.
“It’s going to look amazing,” Director of Libraries Randi Ashton-Pritting said. “When students walk in here in the fall 2017, they are going to be bowled over.”
Although the majority of students will not be on campus after the commencement ceremonies in May, a groundbreaking ceremony is possible but has not been confirmed, and will mostly be up to the discretion of president Walter Harrison.
Because of this, it may be possible that a “topping out” ceremony will happen in the fall. This would involve students signing the steel beams before they are covered up. Again, none of this is confirmed and will be decided at a later time by president Harrison.
Construction will continue throughout the 2016–17 school year and is expected to be finished late spring of 2017.