Numerous construction projects and renovations have been conducted across campus recently, mostly due to funding from the Saints training camp. In addition there was the recent problem of asbestos containing tile in Peltier Hall, Gouaux Hall, Babington Halls and the University Police Department Mike Davis, newly promoted assistant vice president for Procurement and Physical Plant Operations, has been overseeing the projects.

Calecus hall underwent a major renovation. The revisions were priced a little under $350,000.

“On the walls we put fiber-glass panels that look very nice but are easy to maintain since moisture won’t attack these walls,” Davis said.

“We now have cultured marble vanities, cultured marble shower stalls. The bathrooms came out extremely well,” he said.

Davis said that the new accommodations make living conditions more comfortable for the students.

“Instead of having a twin mattress that sat on top of a piece of plywood, we now have a full size mattress and a box spring. So it feels a little bit more like home for our students, and that’s the exciting thing for us,” Davis said.

Davis said that even though these renovations were funded by the state for the Saints, the real benefits are for the students.

“Sure, it’s because of the Saints that we receive money from the state, but the Saints are with us for only thirty days. That renovation stays with us the whole time and is an advantage to our student body,” Davis says

One of the other major projects funded with money from the state is the parking lot between Gouaux Hall and the softball field, which is priced around $250,000.

“That is another project that is of great benefit to out student body, because that’s now going to give us a hard surface parking lot in the center of the campus,” Davis said.

Due to the rain delays, the parking lot construction is now behind schedule.

“It’s little bit behind schedule because of the heavy rains that we got, but it looks like now we’re forecasting rain for the rest of the week. If we wouldn’t have had any rain this week we would have finished before the end of the week,” Davis said.

“Half of it has been turned over to us and the students parked there Monday, which gives us the same amount of parking there we had last year, and hopefully we’ll open the other half in about two weeks,” he said.

In addition to all of the activity involving the Saints related projects was the additional burden of the asbestos situation.

“We weren’t in a hazardous situation. Asbestos is only dangerous if it becomes airborne, that is if you crumble it up, grind it and throw it in the air you can have a problem. However, since it contained asbestos we had to dispose of it in an environmentally safe manner,” Davis said.

The process involved vacating the buildings, including moving all of the people, furniture and computers out.

“The room had to be evacuated so we could do asbestos abatement. After that we got a clean air certificate, then we had to go back in there and put new flooring down, tile or carpet depending on what was in the area. We then had to move all of the furniture back in again,” Davis said.

Davis said that with the Saints projects running around the same time, getting the buildings ready in time for school was a challenge.

“This all had to be done in like a two month period so we would be up and running before the start of school, we wanted the buildings ready by Thursday morning,” Davis said.

Most of the work was completed, with the exception of Gouaux Hall and the police department.

“Now, Gouaux Hall we knew we wouldn’t finish in time. There’s a lot of carpet, but we knew we would be able to do that during the school year. All you have to do is shut down one section of the hallway and they can lay down carpet pretty quickly. So there will be a little inconvenience to the students and faculty but it won’t last long,” Davis said.

Other recently completed construction projects include the installation of sprinkler systems on the football practice field and the soccer field for the women’s soccer team, as well as the hazardous chemical building.