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UMass Amherst Completes Nearly 100 Building Projects and Upgrades

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst completed nearly 100 major and minor construction, renovation and repair projects this summer, part of a continuing effort to upgrade the physical facilities on the Commonwealth’s flagship campus.
Overall, the campus expects to spend about $200 million this year on some 400 projects that are in planning, design or construction phases, according to Jim Cahill, director of facilities planning.
Notable projects include this fall’s opening of the George N. Parks Minuteman Marching Band Building. The $5.8 million facility, named in honor of the longtime band director who died unexpectedly last year, will provide the 300-member band with a large indoor practice and performance space, storage areas for instruments, uniforms and music, and office and conference space for band staff. The fully accessible building is also registered for certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program. Energy reduction and sustainability features include native plantings that don’t require irrigation, heavy insulation in the walls and roof and high performance thermal-break windows and doorways.
The band has moved into its new quarters, which will be dedicated in November.
Also opening is the College of Natural Sciences Research & Education Greenhouse, a $10.8 million renovation and expansion of an existing facility used by the department of plant, soil and insect sciences.
An existing greenhouse was renovated and an additional 15,700 square feet of laboratory and greenhouse space was built as part of the project, according to Cahill. “This will provide some much needed teaching and research space for the department,” he says, “and replace some outdated and storm-damaged greenhouses near French Hall.”
The new greenhouses are state-of-the-art, he says, featuring sophisticated automated systems to control natural and artificial lighting, temperature, humidity, and irrigation and fertilization. The control systems can also adapt the building’s interior environment to the sun, wind and weather.
The design of the laboratory building suggests a modern interpretation of a New England barn. A sophisticated research facility, it has two research labs, a wet/dry classroom for botany instruction, and a core facility for seed germination.
The facility is LEED-registered and targeted for a silver rating.
 Other projects nearing completion as the fall semester begins are the renovations to an auditorium in Morrill Science Center at a cost of about $1.5 million and two team-based learning classrooms in the W.E. B. Du Bois Library and Goodell Hall for a cost of about $1.3 million, according to Cahill.
A $15 million, three-year replacement of the infrastructure and concourse in the Southwest Residential Area is “essentially done,” says Cahill. The redesigned landscape of the pedestrian corridor for the 5,000-resident living area creates an environment that encourages student interaction. The sustainable design also incorporates native shrubs and grasses as well as a series of bioswales that collect, cleanse and infiltrate storm water.
Installation of sprinklers in residence halls continued over the summer. According to Cahill, 94 percent of the residence halls are now equipped with fire suppression systems. Installations in the remaining four halls will be completed in the summer of 2012.
Next month, a project to build new chemistry labs in the Lederle Graduate Research Center will begin. The $11 million overhaul of labs on the third, seventh and eighth floors are being funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Elsewhere on campus, site preparation and utility work for the planned $177 million Commonwealth Honors College Residential Complex was in full swing over the summer. The 1,500-bed living/learning facility also includes classrooms, faculty residences and meeting rooms and is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2013.
Work is also progressing on the $156.5 million New Laboratory Science Building. That project is on target for its scheduled completion in late 2012, says Cahill.

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