This fall students can expect a campus with torn-up sidewalks, piles of mud and large draining pipes spread out on the grounds throughout the semester.
“We are in the middle of phase two of the drainage correction project right now,” said James Hellums, assistant vice president of the physical plant. “It is our continued effort to enlarge and improve the draining system on campus to help with the flooding problems we used to have.”
The University of Memphis previously had major flooding problems near the law building, the chemistry building and the Life Sciences building.
“The project near the law building was finished in phase one and it is working great,” he said. “We are now improving drainage all over campus.”
The main areas of construction right now are in front of the Ned R. McWherter Library, near Wilder Tower and Patterson Hall and the Zach Curlin parking garage.
The project will continue until the spring of 2006 after phase one was completed earlier this year.
“It is a slow process to put these pipes in,” Hellums said.
The engineering firm in charge of the contract is Fisher and Arnold Inc. and they are installing about 10 different draining lines of pipes all over campus.
Right now, the main focus is the line of pipes running from the west side of the psychology building to the east side of the library.
“We have run into a few problems with the utility systems of some of the buildings of The University,” said Ron Powell, chief contractor in charge of the project. “We had inaccurate locations of some of the water lines and gas lines, but I think we are through the worst part of that and I expect to be finished by the middle of November with just a little restoration to finish after that.”
Phase one and phase two are only a beginning to the major project that will take place on Central Avenue. Phase three of the project is to depress the street and add a bridge in front of the engineering building.
“We are doing this to help with the safety of students and the drainage problem,” Hellums said.
The cost of the overall project is somewhere around $3 million.
“This kind of construction doesn’t really bother me,” said Michael Flanagan, junior communications major. “I understand that stuff like this has to go on.
“It would be nice if they scheduled it around a student’s schedule, but with over 20,000 students it’s kind of hard.”
