NIC health building completion this fall

Construction on the addition to NIC’s Meyer Health and Sciences building is moving forward rapidly, although slightly behind schedule.

The construction will be complete for fall 2022 classes, with the new laboratory equipment arriving now through the summer, according to Garry Stark, director of facilities operations for NIC.

He's been a part of the science building project since its inception in 2005 and director for the last eight years. Stark said the exterior will be complete in July, when work on the surrounding garden will begin.

“The design will be really cool, because when you drive down College Drive you are going to see this new façade sticking out,” he said.

Students can expect to see a new stairwell, new group study rooms, a conference room and more offices. The new part of the building will have more dedicated labs and breakout study rooms for nursing students. Also, a large periodic table of elements will be displayed along a wall.

The original science building opened to students in autumn 2005, increasing general classrooms on campus by 25%. At that point there was already talk of expansion. It was cheaper to use the existing space than to build a separate structure.

The building was phased so disruption of students would be minimal, but that also opened it up to setbacks. The entire project had to be halted for a week until two workers, who were framing the outside, returned from a COVID-related quarantine.

Steve Frase, site superintendent of the project contracted out by Leone & Keeble Inc., said the structure and work are going according to expectations but still the project proved to be extraordinary.

“We have had a really good team of subcontractors as well as the design team and school personnel to work together to get this job done,” he said.

Frase said the exterior will be a combination of brick, metal panel siding and large glazed windows. The outside will blend well with the older portion of the building. There will be a “nanawall” feature near the new entrance, allowing an entire side of the lounge to be folded open to the outside air, he said.

Stark said he's very happy to see the project moving forward since it will be a return to standard classroom conditions and less work for the lab staff.

The laboratory manager, David Abshere, acknowledged some of the challenges.

“It's been very, very disruptive," he said. "We have had a huge contamination issue because it's a construction zone.”

Abshere said the new building solves some longstanding storage and classroom space issues. Chemistry, biology, microbiology and botany have been struggling for years to share limited lab space. Sometimes labs would run from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. nonstop.

“We have tried to provide a much more inviting environment for the whole building with little study cubbies, USB ports,” he said. “There are times when students will spend almost the whole day in this building. We want to make it much more comfortable.”