Exterior walls have started going up at the site of the new residence hall. According to Greg McCann, site superintendent for Jamerson-Lewis Construction and a 2006 graduate of Lynchburg College, “the exterior block walls [that] hold up all the other floors” were built over the past couple of weeks.
Underground asbestos abatement and back fill has been completed. “We ran into an old steam tunnel that the pipes were covered up with asbestos,” McCann said. “We had to have a hazardous materials company to come and dig it all out and haul it offsite and then fill the hole back in.”
Storm water installation — site and parking lot drainage, etc. — was completed, and workers also had to replace unsuitable soil at the site. “The dirt was not suitable to hold the building up,” McCann said. “The bad dirt was dug up and hauled offsite and we put new dirt in. If there’s too much organic material in the dirt it becomes too spongy to build a building on.”
Looking ahead to the next few weeks, McCann said following work is planned:
- Continued foundation installation
- Continued masonry wall installation
- Concrete retaining walls to begin.
- Aggregate pier installation to resume on second half of building. “Since the dirt up here is questionable, we drilled holes 15 to 20 feet down and filled them with stone,” McCann said. “The building rests on the aggregate stone piers. That’s what holds the building up from settling too much.”
- Undercut of unsuitable soils to be completed.
