Dedication Ceremony Held

Several hundred people attended a special dedication ceremony held yesterday to celebrate the completion of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library 5th and 6th floor buildback and hazard mitigation project.

The event was organized by Tulane's Office of Development and it began in the afternoon in front of the library building, where a stage had been set up for a series of commemorative speakers that included:

• Michael Fitts, Tulane President
• David Banush, Dean of Libraries and Academic Information Resources
• Darryl Berger, Chairman, Tulane Board of Trustees 
• Sarah Hostetler, ASB student government representative
• Mike Womak, Director of the FEMA Louisiana Recovery Office 

Students, faculty, library staff, and other interested parties had been invited to the dedication event in a general invitation, and written invitations had been sent to important university donors and individuals specially related to the project. These individuals included principals from the library's partners in the project including Tulane Capital Projects & Real Estate, which supplied project management with assistance from VR Management, a division of VergesRome Architects; Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, which was the project's architect; and Roy Anderson Corp., which was the construction contractor.

Among those on hand who managed the design, oversight, and completion of the project were:

Tulane project managers

• Brian O’Malley 
• Andy Corrigan (Library)
• David Schneider (VR Mgt)
• Chip Verges (VR Mgt)

Contractor project managers

• Brandon Skaff 
• John Milazzo 
• Chuck Dudenhefer 
• Jeff Fick 
• Bryan Hartley

Principal Architects (Eskew+Dumez+Ripple)

• Andy Redmon 
• Jason Richards

Tours of the library and a reception on the new 5th floor followed after the speakers concluded the speakers' remarks.

The 5th and 6th floors were opened for use by students and faculty in January near the start of of the spring 2016 semester and with some work still continuing.  Today the new spaces are fully functional, with only minor finishing touches remaining as punch list items in the construction.

Massive Moving Project is Finished

The Big Move of collections to the library's new 5th and 6th floors, which also included large shifts of collections to help restore some lower floor spaces to their original use prior to Katrina, has been completed. 

Library Design Systems (LDS), the Houston-based company that last fall was awarded the contract for move, wrapped things up on March 9 as its workers, as a final task, filled some replacement cabinets delivered to the Microforms area on the 6th floor on the same day.

The move went pretty well, with the work going better during its earlier phases that involved the straightforward transport of material, and less smoothly with the last part that involved a more complex shifting large areas of the existing collections on the lower floors. But the overall project was admittedly an enormous undertaking with a lot of complicated moving parts. It is a good project to have behind us.

The project moved to library's new 5th and 6th floors more than 50,000 linear feet of library material that had been housed in several temporary locations. The 4th floor and 2nd floor shifting phase moved more linear ft. of material than that, albeit largely over shorter distances within the same building.

The move filled the new general "static" or traditional shelving on the 5th and 6th floors with books and government documents. On the 6th floor it filled large three areas of high density shelving for music books, music and media recordings, and rare books. It also moved some 125 microform cabinets and rehoused 1.2 million pieces of microform. Materials were moved from: the library’s off-site storage facility; the 7th and 4th stacks levels in Jones Hall; the temporary area for Music & Media located on the H-TML 4th floor; the open stacks areas in the northeast quadrant of the 4th floor of the Howard-Tilton building and other areas of the open stacks on floors 2-3; and the temporary area for Microforms & Newspapers that had been located on the building's 2nd floor.

The shifting on the lower floors cleared the way for the shelving underneath the wooden ceiling from the former Aron Room on the 4th floor to be removed to create more user space. It did same for the even larger space on the 2nd floor that used to be a central reading room.

Many people on the library end contributed to the move and its planning. David Schneider, an engineer from VR Mgt. and Donna Cook, the library's director of Technical Services, assisted me as principal Tulane contacts. Others included Lisa Hooper, BJ Blue, Doug Park, Jeannette Hunter, and Kelsey Chapman from our music, media, and microforms areas; Josh Lupkin, Chief Bibliographer for the Humanities, Kathleen McCallister, from Rare Books; Bruce Raeburn, Director of Special Collections, and Eric Wedig, Chief Bibliographer for the Social Sciences and Government Publications. Shane Robichaux and his Stacks Management staff Christie Otis and also Chris Gonzalez and Jianli Yao deserve special thanks for their help at various points in the move. Del Hamilton and her staff from LAC Group helped out at the library's offsite facility at 900 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway. At one point during the final week of the move most of the library’s Technical Services division could be seen shelf-reading on the 2nd floor, in a volunteer effort to identify areas where the final shifting needed to be corrected. Many others contributed with signage and by assisting library users during the move, and the operation probably affected all staff in the Howard-Tilton building and some in Jones Hall in one way or another.

The moving project had begun roughly on schedule just after the fall study and exam period and the completion of phases 1 & 2, which filled the shelves on the new upper floors, roughly coincided with the opening of the new space. The last phase was completed only a week or so later than the moving company’s original estimate and, importantly at a cost low enough to fit with federal and state expectations.

Construction Work is Continuing in a Separate Project Aimed at the Library's Basement

A new separate project focusing on a portion of the library basement will stretch construction work within the library building into this summer.

Thus, crews have begun preliminary work that includes demolition of temporary walls in the basement in preparation for construction of eight classrooms, 16 offices, two small conference rooms, and two study areas.  These will be used first as swing space by the School of Business because a larger construction project will add an addition onto Goldring-Woldenberg Hall and will next fall displace similar spaces there.

After the Goldring-Woldenberg addition is finished (in about two years) the classrooms would then become part of the general classroom pool to be assigned by the Registrar’s Office. In other words,while this construction project will take place in the library, it is not specifically a library project.

The time line for the basement project is extremely tight with a target completion date of July 29 in order for the classrooms to be ready for classes already being assigned rooms for fall semester 2016.

A portion of the library staff lounge is slated for demolition as part of the basement project so the original egress hallway that led to the basement elevator lobby from the library’s entrance stairwell to the basement can be restored. The lounge will be extended back toward the elevator lobby to replace the space.

Overall, the project would put back into use about half of the basement space that is presently unused, with the renovation focused on part of center and much of the north end of the basement—the side closest to Dixon Hall.

Preliminary Project Schedule:

• [NOISE ALERT] Demolition Phase: Some work removing walls largely in the northeast corner of the basement began late last week.   The noisy part of this may continue today and possibly tomorrow, as workers use drills and power hammers to remove nine cement risers that once served as base foundations for old mechanical/HVAC equipment.  Cement debris from this operation would be carted up to the 1st floor and removed from the building out the back entrance in the early hours prior to the library opening for a few days. All other materials, including construction materials, would be bought in and out of the building through the existing contractor entrance to the basement at the northwest corner of the building. 
  
  
• Design Phase: Construction documents will be prepared between now and mid-March.
  
  
• Permit Phase: Project managers are hoping for all necessary construction permits to be obtained by April.
  
  
• Construction Phase: Actual construction should start on April 1.
  
  
• Quiet Period: No work will be allowed during the library’s spring semester study and exam period (or during the earlier 5th and 6th floor dedication event planned for March 16).
  
  
• Construction Completion Target: July 29.
  
  
• Occupancy Target: August 1.

Tulane Capital Projects & Real Estate Group (CPREG) will oversee and management the basement project. VergesRome Architects and VR Mgt. will assist, and will also handle the design and preparation of construction drawings. The construction contractor that has handled the library’s 5th and 6th floor build-back addition is handling the preliminary basement demo work and may stay on for the remainder.

New 5th and 6th Floors Opened

The new 5th and 6th floors have been opened and they are now accessible to library users via unrestricted access from the library's elevators and its central stairwell.

Staff members from the former temporary Music & Media Center on the library's 4th floor and the former temporary Microforms | Newspapers area on the 2nd floor have been moved into place to staff a new combined central service point on the 6th floor. For service hours see: http://library.tulane.edu/calendar/mmc and http://library.tulane.edu/calendar/microforms.

General collections on the new 6th floor include:

• Music & Media recordings 
• Music books, serials, and scores (M call numbers) 
• Art and Architecture books and serials (N call numbers) 
• Microforms and newspapers

Rare collections on the 6th floor include the Rare Books collection formerly housed on the 7th and 5th stacks levels and room 306 at Jones Hall, as well as the Tulane’s Legacy Collection of rare titles formerly housed at the library's off-site facility at 900 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway. The Legacy Collection is still being moved into place and access to Rare Books on the 6th floor is presently by appointment only.  Contact: Kathleen McAllister (kmccalli@tulane.edu) at (504) 247-1934.

General collections on the new 5th floor include:

• Government documents 
• HT stacks (call numbers A – BF) 
• Maps 

TUPD has begun patrols of the upper floors in the evenings.

The upper floors have been opened under a TCO (Temporary Certificate of Occupancy). The temporary, conditional nature of the certificate is a formality that confirms that the construction contractor and its subcontractors are still working in many areas of the building including the uppers floors, but that the construction is substantially complete—complete enough for the library to move in and open the space for use. A considerable amount of work remains including the installation of computers and other equipment in the elevator lobbies and classrooms, as well as completion of a long list of construction-related details including electrical work, patching, painting touch-up, etc. The two classrooms on the 6th floor are currently being used for staging of computers and also carts of rare books destined for the new rare books shelves.

Today’s is a “soft opening” with broader campus wide announcements to come later.

Waiting to Open

The library is primed to open the new upper floors, but is waiting for the construction project’s recently issued TCO (Temporary Certificate of Occupancy) to be registered by the construction contractor at city hall, which apparently has required some accompanying documentation, now collected, including a letter from the project’s engineer of record attesting to completion of certain aspects of the project. The temporary, conditional nature of the certificate is a formality that confirms that the construction contractor and its subcontractors are still working in many areas of the building, but that the construction is substantially complete—complete enough for the library to move in and open the space for use.

Thus, with only some paperwork standing in the way at this point, an opening of the new upper floors finally appears imminent. The opening, when it comes, will be a "soft opening" that will consist of simply removing the code blocking elevator access to the upper floors and opening the upper portion of the central stairwell.

The work remaining on the upper floors includes the installation of computers and other equipment in the elevator lobbies and classrooms, as well as completion of a long list of construction-related details including electrical work, patching, painting touch-up, etc.

Construction managers on the project had been aiming to obtain the permits necessary to allow the library to open the upper floors in time for the start of the spring semester, but this did not prove feasible, given the amount of work that was still needed, after all work stopped for the fall study and exam period, for the construction contractor and its subcontractors to address required adjustments such as sprinkler head clearances, smoke control systems, pre-action sprinkler pressure systems, and other significant tasks.

With progress on these tasks, Tulane CPREG (Capital Projects & Real Estate last week hired a separate general contractor  to move office equipment and library staff to the upper floors, and this operation has been completed.

Meanwhile, staff still located in the 4th floor Music & Media Center are retrieving music and media items upon request. At the Circulation Desk we are using our call slip retrieval system to retrieve N call numbers and A-BF call number items on the upper floors.

The Big Move 
The move of collections to the 5th and 6th floors has gone very well. Phase I, the move of collections from the lower floors, was completed last Thursday. In Phase II, the move of materials stored off-site and in Jones Hall, the Jones Hall portion is complete and a crew began moving the Legacy Collection rare books from off-site last week. Phase III, the collections shifting that will put the lower floor stacks back in pre-Katrina order, begins next week. The mover, Library Design Systems (LDS), has stayed on schedule.

In the planned move of some general collection books from the 4th floor open stacks area to the new 5th floor, the mover was able to move A-BF call number ranges including all BF (Psychology) call numbers.

Collections Relocation Project Underway

The big move of collections to the new 5th and 6th floors began just after the end of the fall study and exam period with planning sessions and the staging of moving carts and equipment.  At this point, about one week into the project, the move has been going well in its early stages.

Workers from the moving company Library Design Systems (LDS) completed their move of microforms just before taking a short Christmas holiday break last Thursday. This week they moved print collections (mostly music reference materials) from the Music & Media Center area on the 4th floor to the 6th floor high density shelving that will house all music books and scores. Yesterday they began moving the recorded materials (CDs, DVDs, etc.) that have been housed in the Music & Media Center area on the 4th floor, and these are being loaded into the separate high density shelving system located behind the service desk on the 6th floor.

A library planning and advisory team has been working on the move each day with a primary supervisor/project manager from LDS and he will will be joined by two additional supervisors from the moving company next week, working in three teams of 4-5 workers.  The following general sequence of moving tasks has now been set in motion.

• This Wednesday through Saturday (Jan. 2): Music books (M call numbers) on the 3rd floor to the 6th floor; Art and Architecture books on the 2nd floor (N call numbers) to the 6th floor
• Monday (Jan. 4) through Saturday (Jan. 9): A-AM call number books temporarily housed off site and AM-BF call number books on the 4th floor to the 5th floor; rare books in Jones Hall room 306 to the new rare book high density shelving on the 6th floor (Friday, Jan. 8); newspapers to the 6th floor and map cabinets to the 5th floor
• Monday (Jan. 11) through Saturday (Jan. 16): Rare books from the Jones Hall 7th and 5th stacks levels to the new rare book high density shelving on the 6th floor (through Friday); government documents from the library off-site storage facility to the 5th floor
• Monday (Jan. 18) through Saturday (Jan. 23): Phase 3 shifting to return the lower floor shelving arrangement to pre-Katrina order
• Monday (Jan. 25) through Saturday (Jan. 30): Phase 3 shifting to return the lower floor shelving arrangement to pre-Katrina order
• Wednesday (Feb: 10) through Wednesday (Feb. 17): Legacy Collection rare books at the library off-site storage facility to the new rare book high density shelving on the 6th floor

Under this scheduling plan, most of the general collections to be housed on the new upper floors will be in place by around Jan. 8, which would allow the library to begin to make arrangements to move staff to the 6th floor that same week in anticipation of opening the new space for the spring semester, which starts on Jan. 11.  Much work remains on the construction project as a whole before the constructor contractor can obtain the permits needed for the new floors to be occupied, however, which is why construction crews have also been busily working overtime in the library building during the holiday intersession.

The scheduling plan has some moving operations continuing after the semester begins, but less visibly focused mostly on gov docs, rare materials, and shifting collections on the lower floors. Exact dates and some sequencing are subject to change if needed, of course.

Massive Relocation of Collections to the New 5th and 6th Floors Set to Begin

Since its early planning stages the primary focus of the 5th and 6th floor construction project has been the construction itself, the effort to build back the areas of the library flooded and destroyed after Hurricane Katrina. But in the background that effort was always closed related to the collections recovery and rebuilding that provided most of the resources to be housed in the new space. In the further background, as the construction neared it completion, there would need to be one last major undertaking:  a massive effort to move collections, equipment, and staff into the new spaces so that the area can be opened for use by students and faculty.

The move of collections to the 5th and 6th floors is set to begin this week, although the first several days will be largely devoted to one final round of planning and logistical analysis.  Through a formal bidding process Tulane has selected a library moving company called Library Design Systems (LDS), based in Houston, TX, to do this work.   The project will require LDS to move about 50,000 linear feet of library materials, presently housed in several temporary locations, to library's new 5th and 6th floors. The build-back library addition has general "static" shelving for books and government documents on its 5th and 6th floors. On its 6th floor it has three areas of high density shelving for music books, music and media recordings, and rare books. The 6th floor also has an area for microforms.

The temporary locations currently housing collections to be moved include:

• The library’s off-site storage facility at 900 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway about two miles for the uptown Tulane campus. 
• The 7th and 4th stacks levels in Jones Hall, located directly across and less than 100 yards from the Howard-Tilton building 
• A temporary area for Music & Media located on the 4th floor of the Howard-Tilton building 
• The open stacks areas in the northeast quadrant of the 4th floor of the Howard-Tilton building and other areas of the open stacks on floors 2-3. 
• A temporary area for Microforms & Newspapers located on the 2nd floor of the Howard-Tilton building

All the above is expected to be accomplished with an estimated period of about 16-20 working days, with the main goal to have most of the material in place before the start of the spring semester.  During this same period other crews will move the staff equipment and supplies needed to operate the services to be provided on the new floors. 

The scope of work for the collection move includes a final phase, requiring an additional estimated 12 working days, in which collections will be shifted to restore lower floor spaces of the library to their original use prior to Katrina, after which large areas of study and user space were filled in with temporary shelving.  This phase is expected to take place in the early portion of the spring semester in the general stacks areas of the library's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors.

Loud Work Has Ceased for the Study and Exam Period

Rules laid out in the construction plans prohibit disruptive work onsite during study and exam periods. This effectively means that all construction work within the lower floors of the building has now been halted, officially between the dates of Friday, Dec. 4 and Tuesday Dec. 15.  Loud activity within the new 5th and 6th floors above has been shut down as well.

A small crew from a library shelving company has been completing its installation of the last remaining book shelves to go in on the upper floors, in this case located in a small section of the southeast corner of the new 5th floor.  The crew is not using power tools and the work is not considered equivalent to construction activity or noticeable on the floors below.  However, the work will be stopped too by Tulane’s department of Capital Projects & Real Estate (CPREG) if it at any point its determined to be disruptive.

Once the construction work resumes after the study and exam period ends, only a few more weeks of work is expected before the construction project is officially declared by inspectors to be "substantially complete," with only minor punch list items remaining.  The goal is to allow the library to move collections and staff into the new upper spaces in time to open them for the upcoming spring 2016 semester.

Construction Progressing Toward Substantial Completion

The construction contractor and project managers are now targeting the end of November or early December as the date for substantial completion of the construction portion of the project.  At that point, they say, only minor "punch list" items should remain.

The library hopes that the new upper floors will be ready to be opened for use for the start of the Spring 2016 semester.

One sure sign of progress is that the area of the central stairs that had been closed between the 3rd and 4th floors has now been opened. This will give library users clear access to all open floors of the building via the central stairs, for the first time in a long time.

It will also reduce if not eliminate the need to rely on the Freret Street and Dixon Hall side emergency stairwells, at least for now.  Portions of the central stairwell will still need to be closed at some points in the weeks ahead in order for crews to install glass panels next to the handrails for each stair section, but this will be phased in sequence, a day or so for each floor. Project managers say the subcontractor handling this operation would likely end work on each of these days between 3-4 pm.  In other words, it appears that the operation might not block full use of the stairs in the late afternoon or evenings. 

Furniture: Crews from Associated Office Systems have nearly completed the delivery and installation of the furniture for the 5th and 6th floors. Staged deliveries were brought into the library during the past couple of weeks through the exit door on the Dixon Hall side of the building as well as from the loading dock at the southwest corner of the building, and then to the upper floors via elevator #2 from the 1st floor lobby.  The furniture included study carrels, tables for media and microforms viewing stations, large tables for computers in each elevator lobby, classroom furniture, office furniture, and more.

Most of the shelving for the upper floors had already been delivered and installed earlier this fall, with just one more area of shelving, at the southeast corner of the 5th floor, still pending.

Fire Suppression System: The construction contractor and its subcontractor for the building’s new fire suppression (sprinkler) has for the past couple of weeks been introducing water to the system, floor by floor. They began on new 5th and 6th floors, then worked downward.  Prior to this the system has been tested several times: (first) as lines and heads were installed in quadrants on each floor and (second) for entire floors before sprinkler crews were allowed to progress downward through the building. The tests of the system were air pressure tests that looked for air leaks that might expose problems.

The tests were not infallible, however.  When water was introduced to the system on the 3rd floor, a leak occurred around a seal on a main line just outside the entrance to Classroom 309 in the ILC/CLUE area and over an adjacent office doorway. Thereafter, as the operation proceeded, the system was retested multiple times again, this time with higher levels of air pressure said to provide a closer approximation of the water pressure that would be produced in the same pipes.  Now that water has been brought into the system as a whole, more stringent testing of the entire fire suppression system and its pumps and controls will soon follow. This will be performed by independent commissioning engineers and eventually by the state fire marshal.

Elevator:  Presently there are still only two elevators serving the library building and one of the two is designated for construction use only, which leaves one elevator for general library use.  The last remaining elevator to be brought back online after having been rebuilt and extended to reach the new upper floors is still awaiting clearance from the city's elevator inspector, who has called for some additional work within the elevator shaft before all three elevators can be returned for normal use. The construction contractor reports that the work in the elevator shaft might be completed by the end of this week.

Exterior:   Most of the construction fencing around the exterior of the building has now been removed and landscapers have largely returned the space surrounding the building to its original condition, although the area bordering the library along Freret Street still needs to be re-sodded.  Tulane Facilities Services is scheduled to place new plants in the planter boxes around the edge of the building later this week. Tulane Capital Projects & Real Estate (CPREG) hired an outside contractor to clean the exterior of the lower floors of the building.

Updates: Central Stairs, Project Timeline Estimate, and More

Late last week crews were finally able to complete the pouring of cement for the fabrication of the 5th and 6th floor stairs in the library's central stairwell. In the long process that determined the best method for accomplishing this task, the construction contractor ended up using a different cement mixture than the one that would have needed 21 days to cure before the stair forms could be removed. The new mixture may be cured enough to remove the forms within about a week. Moisture content, temperature, and other properties of the cement will likely be assessed within the next  day or so.  If the pour is judged to be successful, the focus will shift toward determining when the supports and scaffolding in the lower portions of the stairwell can be removed, and when some or all of the stairwell might be returned to use.

When the central stairwell is cleared of the supports and scaffolding, new glass rails will need to be installed for all the stairs at all levels from the basement up. In late summer, when the fabrication of the 5th and 6th floor stairs wasn’t behind schedule, the plan for the glass rails was to install them in a phased sequence--a little at a time. With time running out in the construction schedule, it may be decided to lay in the rails under a more concentrated timeline with the stairwell still closed.

Updated Estimated Project Timeline
Below is a chart that illustrates some key projects in the final stages of the construction timeline, including  key projects remaining. While the construction itself will wind down as planned later this fall, the new 5th and 6th floor spaces likely will not be ready for general use until collections and staff can be moved into them. The moving project will be enormous and involve the careful packing, transport, and reshelving of more than 55,000 linear feet of collections.  With some funding issues now resolved, the project may be put out to bid within the next couple of weeks.  If so, the first of three phases of the move would begin during the winter intersession with the second and third phases following in the first half of the spring semester. If all goes well, the new floors might be opened for general use upon completion of the first phase, i.e., for the start of the upcoming spring semester.

Timeline: Click to enlarge

Pile Driving [Noise Alert]
The first phase of pile driving to lay foundations for new stairs for the emergency exits of the building has  been completed on the backside of the building and adjacent to door exiting the center of the Technical Services area on the library’s 1st floor. The next set of piles is expected to be driven this week, likely on Tuesday, for the exit on the Freret Street side of the building. Preliminary to the pile driving on the Freret Street side of the building, workers are removing some cement that had been part of the former temporary library entrance within the same fenced area.

Elevators
The city’s elevator inspector has now issued a conditional “contractor’s” permit to bring online elevator #2, which is the middle elevator in the elevator lobby of each of the building's floors.  This effectively designates elevator #2 for construction use only, while construction continues. Elevator #3, the closest elevator to the west side of the building in each lobby, is now functioning as library use only (for library personnel and library users). Meanwhile, crews from Schindler Elevator Co are now focused on finishing elevator #1. Its primarily remaining issues are some glitches with the new controls on its second door that opens facing the back of the Help Desk area on the 1st floor and replacement of overhead bearings to eliminate the same slight vibration that the inspector had noted in elevator #2. Once these items are resolved an inspection for elevator #1 will be scheduled ASAP. Elevator #1 would also function as library use only (for library personnel and library users).

HVAC
The engineers from MCC Mechanical, MCC Metal, MCC Commissioning, Siemens Controls, and Siemens Pneumatics are still slowly working on their examination of the building’s entire HVAC system to determine what’s working now and what’s still not. The process is expected to take a few more days. Temperature and humidity readings have continued to show some improvement in the building’s climate overall, although problems are being addressed in isolated areas such as hot spots where only warm air has been emitting from air vents. Example hot spots include some offices on the 4th floor; the 3rd floor classroom area, especially rooms 306 and 309; the 2nd floor admin office area; and the 1st floor area near the entrance and closer to the Dixon side of the building. The Latin American Library closed stacks area on the 4th floor is still overcooling. These problems should eventually be resolved by the replacement of broken thermostats, actuators, and dampers.

Stepped Up Construction Activity

With the construction project due to reach its “substantial completion” stage in a little more than a month, the construction contractor and its subcontractors are working extra shifts and Saturdays to complete remaining tasks and especially tasks on the lower floors.

Here are updates on some current activities:

Elevators 
Crews from Schindler Elevator Co. are very close to completing work on both elevators #1 and #2, and the sump pumps required for the bottom of each shaft were ordered for installation this week. It is technically possible that at least one of the additional elevators could be back in service within a week or so, if the city's elevator inspector approves.

Central Stairs 
As of this afternoon, cement had still not been poured for the complex fabrication of the 5th and 6th floor stairs in the central stairwell. This project has been in stasis for the past month as engineers, architects, and project managers have gone back and forth over its requirements. Once the cement is poured it may need to cure for 21 days before the forms are removed and the stairs can be finished. Thus, the central stairs may one of the last projects completed in the main construction timeline.  Meanwhile, there has been a lot of work activity related to electrical circuits and smoke control system dampers around the interior air shafts adjacent to all of the building’s stairwells.

HVAC (Temperature and Humidity Control)
Basically, the building's new HVAC system is now running on automatic controls but not yet at preferred temperatures and relative humidity consistently throughout the building.  As predicted the building has warmed after introducing hot air into the mix, but the engineers on the project think they are getting closer to working the kinks out.  Still, two things need to happen before the system can be correctly balanced: (1) the engineers and technicians need to complete the work needed to identify and fix faulty pneumatic thermostats, disconnected or undersized horizontal pneumatic mains, faulty actuators on VAV boxes, and frozen or locked up damper shafts on the lower floors and (2) they need to complete work on the replacement or repair of smoke control dampers leading from the overhead air duct in the ceilings to the vertical duct in each of the building’s interior chases by each stairwell. All this could take a couple of weeks, but some gradual climate improvement should be noticeable before then.

Fences and Remaining Perimeter Work
The construction fence occupying Newcomb Place has been been removed, the area within mostly restored, and parking places restriped (repainted).  The area was reopened for parking by Tulane Public Safety yesterday. Meanwhile, crews have begun to dismantle the temporary main entrance on the Freret Street side of the building that served the library during the earlier stages of the construction. Along the back of the building crews have almost completed the removal of the remaining pieces of the galvanized steel towers and other equipment from the temporary HVAC that served the library since January 2006.  Construction building codes require new stairs for the building's three emergency exits and this will require piles to be driven.  Likely next week, the first set of piles will be driven on the west side of the building adjacent to door exiting the center of the Technical Services area on the library’s 1st floor. Those stairs will require 4 piles, 30-ft in length. Next a set of two piles will be driven for the exit on the Freret Street side of the building, and this is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 28. Two more piles for the exit on the Dixon hall side of the building could be driven on either date, depending which pile driver on site at the time is determined to be most suitable for that location, which is squeezed within the contractor’s newly compressed construction staging area.

Shelving and Furniture for the New Upper Floors
Almost all the shelving for the upper floors has been delivered and on the 6th floor most of it has already been installed.  The 5th floor installation is next.  Furniture for the upper floors is expected to begin to arrive early next month and deliveries will be scheduled through the remainder of October. Only minor details in the FF&E (Furniture, Fixtures, & Equipment) process still need to be wrapped up. Tulane Technology Services is assisting with the preparation of specs to seek bids for computer equipment in the 5th and 6th floor elevator lobbies and instructional technology equipment for the two classrooms on the 6th floor.

Balancing the New HVAC System Proves Challenging

Since the library's the new HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) system was activated during the first weekend in August, the process of balancing the system to produce proper temperature and humidity levels has proven to be a long and challenging process.

Temperatures: floors 1-2

For about two weeks after the switch from the old "temporary" system, temperatures in the building were too warm--often near or above 80 degrees in some areas.  Eventually, engineers and technicians from two companies, the mechanical/electrical subcontractor MCC and the automation engineering firm Siemens, succeeded in getting air flowing from all the new HVAC blower units and with a sufficient flow of campus chilled water.  This produced the opposite problem, with temperatures falling to the mid and low 60s, and even lower in one location.  The adjustments at that point did produce lower levels of relative humidity, which was a positive step.

Yesterday the engineers and technicians began to mix steam (heat), generated from the campus physical plant, with the cold air circulating through the new HVAC system components.
 

Temperatures: floors 3-4

In some areas warmer air has already been emitting from air vents replacing the very cold air that had been circulating during the past couple of weeks. This could result in a subtle moderation of temperatures or, until the system is correctly balanced, it is entirely possible that some areas may become too warm.  The library's climate monitoring group (in operation since the library reopened after Katrina) is continuing to collect temperature and humidity readings to monitor the building's climate in multiple locations on all four lower floors, and is sharing these data daily with the construction project managers.

Meanwhile, the new mechanical system on the 5th floor basically connects to older duct and controls that for ten years have been dormant on the lower floors.  An MCC crew has been surveying the building to identify faulty pneumatic thermostats, disconnected or undersized horizontal pneumatic mains, faulty actuators on VAV boxes, and frozen or locked up damper shafts. They have developed a plan for repairs, which should address the remaining problems with distributing air flow throughout the lower floors. Siemens technicians have begun replacing about 30 faulty thermostats that had already been identified and more will be added to their list as MCC completes its survey. Some of the new thermostats needed are in office areas; the plan is for the work to be scheduled in advance as much as possible to give fair warning to occupants.

Tubes and Towers
Work has progressed relatively quickly on the removal of the old temporary HVAC system with its tubes and towers, and this includes glass replacement or repairs where overhead air distribution tubes ran through transoms, ceilings, or walls. Chilled water pipe and the older blower units have been removed from the back of the library building. Workers have begun separating the old towers from the building, as the first stage in the tower removal.

Elevators
The library has been limping along with a single elevator since last November, in a phased operation in which all three elevators have been rebuilt and extended to also serve the new 5th and 6th floors. The other two elevators are now functioning and capable of traveling from the basement level to the 6th floor. Remaining work includes installing new elevator doors, modifications to the interior of each elevator car, and the installation of sump pumps required for the bottom of each shaft. The city inspector who will be reviewing the elevators before issuing certification allowing them to be operated for public use is being contracted in advance now in an effort to identify any potential obstacles to quickly passing inspection when the time comes, which is hoped to be soon.

Milestone: Original Entrance Reopened

Several tasks were successfully coordinated last week to allow for a switch back to the library's original main entrance that faces Newcomb Place.

First the construction contractor needed to dramatically reduce the size of the fenced construction zone in front of the library building and between the library and Jones Hall. Then a technician from the 3M Corporation, through which the library maintains a service maintenance agreement, needed to be scheduled to travel from Minnesota to New Orleans to disassemble of the security gate at the temporary Freret Street entrance and reinstall the gate at its original location. Then the original automatically-opening front doors needed to be reactivated and the temporary doorway onto Freret Street closed.

The entrance switch over took place with little fanfare last Tuesday afternoon.

The main entrance to the library had been temporarily moved way back in October of 2012, at the very start of the project, to the Freret Street side of the building.   The change back to the original entrance can be seen as another tangible sign that the construction project, set to end later this fall, is finally nearing completion.

The construction contractor plans to begin removing most if not all of the construction fence still occupying Newcomb Place on Sept. 7 or shortly thereafter.

End of the Era of Hanging Tubes: "Temporary" HVAC System to be Removed

The construction contractor has scheduled a crew to begin today to remove the old overhead tubes left from the library's “temporary” HVAC system. The process is to start on the south end of the 4th floor in the open stacks area of the Latin American Library (LAL) and then progress through the lower floors in sequence. The tubes that ran through the LAL closed stacks and the open general stacks on the north end of 4th floor have already been taken down.

A separate crew will be dispatched later, likely beginning next week, to follow behind and begin to replace interior transoms and repair other holes left from the tubes.

The temporary HVAC system with its interior air distribution tubes spanning each floor in eight locations was first installed in the initial effort to remediate the heavily damaged Howard-Tilton building after Hurricane Katrina.  The system was designed as an interim measure to last for a relatively short period of time; it served the library, for better or worse, for more than nine years.

The exterior work to remove the temporary HVAC towers, blower units, and chilled water lines along the back of the building will be treated separately, but this too is expected to commence within the next few weeks. That work will include the removal of the metal flange and damper pieces fitted into former windows and through which the tubes were connected to the outside towers. The windows have all been measured for new glass and they’ll be replaced as part of the tower removal, with precautions taken to limit brief interior exposure to the outside elements through these openings. Special attention will be paid to the scheduling of the work in areas such as the LAL rare and closed stacks areas on the 4th floor, classroom 309, and staff office areas.

Since the switch to the new permanent HVAC system two weeks ago, the new system has worked well in some areas of the building and not so well in others.  Some of the balancing the system may have to do with air picked up in the system that feeds some of the new cooling units from the campus chilled water supply. This may have caused some vapor lock in units that feed certain locations getting very little air on the lower floors. Technicians from the mechanical/electrical subcontractor MCC are bleeding all the lines to these units to remove any air that may have become trapped. After this they may be able to get a truer sense of which areas actually have air flow issues otherwise due to closed dampers. Also, yesterday a humidity issue on the north side of the 3rd floor was traced to to an open air vent in the graduate carrels nearby at the northwest corner of the building. The vent was designed to release building air pressure, but was heating that corner of the carrels with direct outside air. The wall in the carrels there does not extend to the ceiling so warm humid air was mixing with the new cool air in the adjacent stacks area, creating condensation. The vent is now sealed, and the humidity is dropping.

Monday, a team from MCC is scheduled to begin a more thorough inspection of the air duct and diffusers on each floor. The team will search for dampers that need to be manually reopened and other potential issues. They plan to start in the basement and work their way up through floors 1-6.

Rare Latin American Library (LAL) Collections to Return from Off-site; Elevator Access Limited During the Move

The returning move of rare Latin American  Library (LAL) collections from storage off-site back to Howard-Tilton's 4th floor LAL closed stacks area is set to begin this Monday, August 10.  During the move, it is expected that the mover will have control of the elevator. Otherwise, use of the elevator will be limited to library users and staff physically unable to use the stairs at the Freret Street (south) and Dixon Hall (north) ends of the building.

Hallett Moving Co. has been contracted to perform the move, which the company is expecting to take about a week. The company plans to finish in five days--on Friday, August 14. Moving operations are scheduled to begin each day at 7 am (a little later on the first day Monday) and continue through until 6 pm. Initially, it was thought thought that the move might begin earlier in the mornings, but the need for the library to provide supervised access and staff “spotters” during the move simultaneously at both the library off-site facility and the LAL closed stacks rare book area in H-TML’s 4th floor made the earlier start unpractical.

Hallett staff members have been at the library all this week mapping out their plans (in consultation with LAL staff), measuring and flagging materials, and readjusting shelf heights where needed.

The returning materials will be brought into the library through its 1st floor loading dock and then to the elevator. Hallett is national firm that specializes in library moving; its crews are used to working in library settings and with library materials including rare materials.

The move will encompass more than 6,000 linear feet of material, which was moved to the off-site facility at 900 S. Jeff Davis Parkway just prior to the 5th and 6th floor construction project as a means of protecting these collections while new mechanical and HVAC systems were being built overhead. A special high-density mobile shelving system was purchased and installed off-site for this purpose. It will be dismantled, moved, then reassembled on the new HTML 6th floor for use in housing recorded music and media collections.

A team from the shelving company Associated Office Systems (AOS) examined the mobile shelving off-site earlier this week to begin their plans to deassemble, transport, and then reassemble the shelving on the 6th floor. They’re expecting to begin this operation very soon after the move of rare materials is complete.

It is likely that, like the other shelving for the 5th and 6th floors, this shelving will be craned to a balcony area where a window has been removed at the 5th floor level and then hoisted into the building there. Crews have then carried shelving components destined for the 6th floor up the Dixon side stairwell by hand.

The Library's Fire Suppression (Sprinkler) System

The construction project reached a milestone this month when the installation of a fire suppression (sprinkler) system throughout the lower floors of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library was completed.  The installation lasted more than a year and in phased sequence affected every area of the library building. Coping with the disruption tended to overshadow the significance of the system itself.

The building was constructed in 1968 without a fire sprinkler system, since one was not then required by building codes.  Adding two more floors to the building under today's codes made adding such a system mandatory.

A fire sprinkler system can be a double-edge sword in a library building.  Fire will affect library collections in ways that cannot be repaired.  On the other hand, errant sprinkler systems have been known to flood libraries by mistake, requiring costly salvage and restoration efforts. These events are rare, but documented nonetheless.  Generally, the proper installation of appropriate fire suppression systems is supported by preservationists in libraries since, in the end, a wet book would be preferable to a burnt one.  Importantly, fire sprinkler systems are mainly intended to protect people, especially in multi-story buildings where above 75 feet or so firefighters would have limited ability to provide adequate hose streams to, or rescue from, a raging fire.

The architects and project managers for the H-TML addition consulted with the library in addressing the requirements for a fire sprinkler system during the schematic design phase of the project before the construction began.  As a result the system for the Howard-Tilton building employs a combination of two sprinkler types: (1) a wet (water-based) system as the norm for most areas of the building and (2) a preaction system for the areas of the building that hold rare collections. Preaction systems also employ water but do not retain water in their pipes, thereby reducing any chance for leakage over especially high value collections.

In either type the system operates in an isolated fashion, i.e., a triggered heat sensor would set off only the closest individual sprinkler head, rather than multiple heads or the system as a whole.

There were other considerations with fire sprinkler systems beyond basic type and these included method of fire detection and system component variations.  These were addressed in the construction design as well. For more information about fire suppression systems see this report from the Northeast Document Conservation Center.

A need for first responders to have quick access to controls for the system factored in the design of a large mechanical control area now located on the first floor of the building adjacent to the fire lane between the library and Dixon Hall next door. Most of the library's new main mechanical systems and electrical central plant are now located on the 5th floor far above.

The sprinkler installation involved laying out pipelines with connecting sprinkler heads above the ceiling throughout the building, with sprinkler heads eventually poking through the ceiling at 8-foot intervals.  The installation began in the northeast quadrant of the 4^th floor in February 2014 and was often delayed by differences between actual conditions above the ceilings and the pipe, duct, and conduit locations shown in the original 1967 schematic drawings for the building.

The impact of the sprinkler work often left large areas of the book stacks covered with plastic sheeting for long periods while disrupting access to offices, classrooms, and faculty carrels.  Early on, the library developed a retrieval system to help library users get books from covered areas.  During research-intensive periods in semesters when the installation progressed to the 3rd and then the 2nd floor the library set up a mobile Construction Concierge desk, from which staff or student workers provided onsite assistance . 

A difficult challenge for the sprinkler subcontractor came this past winter when crews needed to be divided between the work required on the new upper floors and the equally time-sensitive work required to rebuild the ceilings in the 1st floor elevator lobby and adjacent Learning Commons.  The final section of the system was completed on July 8 in the southwest quadrant of the 2nd floor.  

Library to Close Next Weekend (Aug. 1-2) for HVAC Testing

Project managers have set the weekend of August 1 and 2 as the date to begin the start-up, testing, and balancing of the new HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) system within the library's lower floors. The start-up will likely begin that Friday evening, July 31, after the library’s normal hours and continue through that Sunday. During that period the library will be closed.

Testing and balancing components of the new HVAC system began last week and was limited to the upper 5th and 6th floors. The system is working well and the new upper floors are noticeably cooler than the lower ones still dependent on the ”temporary” blowers, towers, and tubes upon which the library has relied since the building was reopen in spring 2006 after Hurricane Katrina .

The closure is a precautionary measure that will allow testing and balancing the system on the lower floors to be done while the library is unoccupied. During the closure air quality in the building would be tested, although the existing duct on the lower floors has been sample-tested for dust and contaminants in recent years with no problems identified. Once the air flow from the new system is properly checked out, a switch to the new system will take place ASAP.

The new HVAC system is part of a new mechanical and electrical central plant that occupies about two-thirds of the floor space on the 5th floor, although the area is walled in and hidden from view.  To build these systems on an upper level instead of a ground floor or basement, mechanical/electrical chase spaces through the center core of the building were reconfigured for vertical duct work to feed from the top-down rather than from the basement-up. New vertical duct, electrical conduit, and pipe were tied into the existing lateral distribution systems. Stair and elevator emergency pressurization systems were adjusted to meet current building codes.  All the new mechanical and electrical equipment has greater capacity to provide service for the two new floors and the mechanical systems include high performance air filtering and temperature/humidity controls.

Extra systems were put in place to eliminate any noticeable noise or vibration in all directions outside the mechanical area.  All equipment using water or liquid rests on large stainless steel drip pans with drainage systems and equipped with sensors that will shut off units when dripping water or liquid in a pan is detected.  As an added precaution, the floor and lower walls of the entire mechanical area are coated with thick layers of epoxy that produce a seal like a swimming pool and the floor itself has drains.  

The 5th and 6th floor construction scope includes removing all the old hanging tube that serves as temporary air duct on floors 1-4 of the building and replacing all the lower floor windows and transoms displaced by the tubes. Also included would be any other related interior repairs. Outside, the contractor will remove all the towers, blower units, and temporary chilled water pipe behind the building and restore that area to pre-Katrina condition as well. This dismantling of the old HVAC system and related repairs is expected to be completed in August.

Central Stairs Temporarily Closed

Work to build stairs for the library's new 5th and 6th floors in its central stairwell officially began today (Wednesday, July 22). As a result the stairwell is expected to be closed for use for 3 to 4 weeks, which is an ambitious time frame given the work that will be required to cast the stairs in place.

Both of the library’s other stairwells, at the Dixon Hall (north) and Freret Street (south) ends of the building, will be available during the central stairwell closure. 

Each section of the upper floor central stairs to be built will be large and very heavy, and their construction will be a complex undertaking. A number of options for building or installing the stairs were explored. The first required an elaborate but too-disruptive plan to crane-hoist precast stair sections weighing 15 tons apiece into the building through the openings for the buck hoist external elevator then cabled them diagonally across the floor to where they will be fitted into place within the stairs using a complex system of pulleys and other equipment. This would have required additional work to reinforce the 5th floor with a few dozen temporary shoring posts set underneath on the 4th floor in areas including the Music & Media Center and LAL book stacks. Another option involved having precast stairs delivered in smaller, less load-sensitive pieces from the manufacturer, but this was determined to be unfeasible. A later plan would have cut a hole in the roof above the stairwell to lower the precast stair pieces directly into place from overhead by crane; this option was determined to be feasible but, the part of about cutting a hole in the new roof was decided to be something to avoid if another way could be found.

In the end, casting the stairs in place was found to be by far the safest and least disruptive option.  The work will include within the stairwell the erection of scaffolding and structural supports as well as the concrete forms for the stairs themselves.  Once rebar is laid and the concrete is poured and dried within the forms, the forms will be removed and then the stairs will need detailed finish work. 

To reduce the scope of the work within the period in which the stairwell will be closed, the construction contractor no longer plans to include the installation of new handrails for the central stairs on floors 1-4. The handrails will be installed later in a separate phased effort that won’t necessarily require closure of the entire stairwell.

A Busy Summer of Construction

It's been a busy summer of construction at the library, with the construction contractor still hoping to complete the 5th and 6th addition sometime in October this fall.  Here is some information on several current projects affecting library operations:

Timeline:  Click to Enlarge

HVAC: The library has been cooled since Katrina with a temporary HVAC system represented by the eight galvanized steel towers along the back of the building feeding the plastic interior overhead tubes through which air is pumped to each floor. Technicians this month will begin testing and balancing components of the new HVAC system for the building built on the 5th floor. The testing will be limited to the upper floors first and then the building will likely be closed for the first couple of days when air from the new system is finally pumped through existing duct into the lower floors.  Dates for the closures,which will allow for air quality testing, will be announced in advance.  

Elevators:  Earlier this month Schindler Elevator Company completed work on elevator #3, which was the  first of the rebuilt elevators, extended to the 5th and 6th floors, to come back on line.  With elevator #3 fully tested, old elevator #1 was finally shut down for its rebuild.  A rebuilt elevator #2, which will share a vertical rail with elevator #1, will be operational as soon as that shared rail is replaced with one that extends to the 5th and 6th floor.  Both elevators #1 and #2 are expected to be brought back into service in October.

Central Stairwell:  Later this month the library's central stairwell will be closed so that crews can construct the stairs for the 5th and 6th floors above. During this time users will still have access to floors 2-4 from the two smaller stairwells on the Freret Street (south) and Dixon Hall (north) sides of the building and also via the rebuilt elevator #3 . Meanwhile, workers have been completing the installation of  new metal doors and overhead transoms at the entrances to the stairwell on floors 2-4. Work on the fire-rated glass enclosure  around the entrance to the central stairwell on the 1st floor was completed at the start of the summer session in June.  The remaining work within this stairwell includes the installation of new handrails on floors 1-6.

Additional Stairwell Work:  The contractor has completed the installation of new railings in the stairwells on the Dixon Hall (north) side and on the Freret Street (south) side of the building. Crews are now painting the new handrails and touching up the paint on the stairwell walls, alternating stairwell closures while the painting is underway.

Roof Replacement:  The roofing subcontractor on the project is completing work to replace the top sheets on the new roof, which did not pass some rigorous inspection tests.  The main problem was apparently uncovered in a test for wind uplift, which is conducted to identify whether the vacuum produced by high winds crossing the roof would create any separation in the top sheets of roof layers.  These are laid above a base roof layer of lightweight concrete. The top sheets are supposed to remain sealed together, but the tests showed some separation, which theoretically could result in tearing (holes). The additional roof work was not expected to delay the overall completion of the construction project.

FF&E: The interior design firm F E R R A N D d e s i g n has been selected to manage the Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment (FF&E) portion of the construction project.  FF&E in this case will be limited to the selection of furniture because furniture layouts and most furniture types were approved by FEMA in the design phase of the project. The FF&E architect will work closely with Tulane’s Capital Projects & Real Estate Department and the Office of the Campus Architect.  The library will have input in the selection process as well.

Shelving:  All the shelving for the upper floors —both traditional shelving and high density mobile units—has been ordered.  Rails for the high density shelving have already been installed. More shelving components will  begin to arrive in a few weeks.

Collections Moving:  Work on an RFP to hire a qualified library mover to eventually move collections to the new upper floors (and to restore order to the lowers ones) is underway.  The moving project will be enormous and must involve the careful packing, transport, and reshelving of more than 55,000 linear feet of library collections. The move will likely be split into three phases with the first expected to begin in late fall, the second to take place during the winter intersession, and the last expected to begin next spring.

Sprinkler System: Work on the installation of the fire suppression (sprinkler) system for the lower floors (1-4) was finally completed last week, as crews wrapped up the installation of overhead pipe and sprinkler heads in the southwest quadrant of the 2nd floor.

Loud Work Ceases for Study and Exam Period

As usual since work on the 5th and 6th floor addition began, construction-related work within the lower floors of the library has been halted during the its study and exam period, which this semester lasts from  April 24 until May 9.

In addition, the construction contractor agreed to temporarily remove the plastic sheeting that was covering books on the 2nd floor in the area where the fire suppression (sprinkler) system was being installed. This was accomplished quickly last Thursday afternoon. Workers will replace the plastic when the installation resumes on May 11.

Rules laid out in the construction plans specifically prohibit disruptive work onsite during study and exam periods. This effectively means that all construction work within the lower floors of the building is to stop. Jack-hammering, metal cutting, and other disruptive activity within the 5th and 6th floors above is to stop as well. The construction contractor and its subs are allowed to continue work on a short list of other projects above that are said to carry little risk of disruption to students studying on the lower floors. However, these projects can be stopped by Tulane’s department of Capital Projects & Real Estate (CPREG) or its project monitors, VR Management, if needed.

There is a separate contractor working in the building on a non-construction related project, a renovation of classroom 308, organized independently by Tulane Technology Services.  Most of the equipment for the renovation has already been moved up to the room and the remaining work there is not likely to be especially noisy. The work in 308 is expected to be finished by Thursday, April 30, and the new examples of instructional technology taking shape there are impressive.