UCA will spend approximately $75,000 to make repairs to the Harding Centennial Fountain before the start of the fall 2017 semester.
Nabholz Construction Services is working on replacing the fiberglass in-ground vault, which was beginning to collapse with a concrete vault. Vaults serve as the pump for the fountain.
Nabholz Construction will also work to improve the cleanliness of the fountain.
“The fountain is approximately 12 years old and needed some general maintenance, such as the vault and cleaning of the inside of the pools with a pool paint or coating as well as some precast concrete repair,” Physical Plant Director Larry Lawrence said.
The lights at the bottom of the fountain pool will also be replaced with LED lighting, Lawrence said.
During the fountain’s construction, plumbing work had to be done and piping had to be taken out in order to replace the vault.
Along with the work on the fountain, construction is taking place on different buildings across campus such as McAlister Hall.
The food lab room in McAlister Hall room 214 will have new floors of polished concrete. It will also receive new garbage disposals, painting for walls and cabinets, and faucets.
New state of the art equipment will be added to the room, such as replacements for gas ovens with commercial ovens.
According to the Department Chair for Family and Consumer Sciences Nina Roofe, the new renovations are exciting and helpful to students in this department.
“The goal with the full renovation was to improve the educational opportunities for students, and this certainly does that,” Roofe said. “Instead of only being able to watch a video about state of the art equipment, students now have access to use the equipment that they’ll be using once they get into the field.”
McAllister 214 will also have a wheel-chair accessible lab station, something it hadn’t offered before.
The Mirror Room on the first floor of McAlister Hall is also getting new flooring, paint and lighting.
The Facilities Project Update from the Physical Plant in April mentioned that other renovations may take place in the future, such as realignment of rooms in Stanley Russ Hall to create more space for classrooms and a new roof for Mashburn Hall.
According to Lawrence, the fountain construction is expected to be done by Aug 1, and the renovations to McAlister Hall should be done toward the beginning of August as well.
