Taylor’s building projects reached new milestones this past week, as both the Chapel Welcome Center and the Paul and Barbara Gentile Hall (PBG) began construction.
Previously, construction focused on site and foundation work, preparing the site for the buildings. Now construction on buildings can begin, making this week a turning point for the projects, Keith Cocking, director of construction services, said.
Steel beams arrived at the chapel site on Monday, April 13. Those beams will form the skeleton of the structure, Cocking said.
“A building like the chapel, everything that stands the building up, that supports the building is all made out of steel,” Cocking said. “All that steel is hidden by walls later, but the framework of the building gets installed first.”
The construction will not impact the use of the chapel or student center, Cocking said. The additions will be built separately from the existing structure and will be connected only at the end of construction.
The panels for Paul and Barbara Gentile Hall also arrived, prefabricated portions of the building that enable quick construction.
“Basically, the building’s coming in many, many panels,” Cocking said. “These panels get stood up, so the building will go from nothing to being built very, very quickly on the outside. Then we go back in and fill the inside in.”
The west half of Gentile Hall will be finished by the end of the semester and open for residence by the start of the fall semester.
This construction method radically shortens the length of construction time, Cocking said. If built with traditional methods, PBG Hall would only be ready in the fall of 2027, adding a year to the construction time.
There are drawbacks to prefabricated construction, Cocking said. While the construction period is shortened, the planning and coordination is far more intense, since there is less flexibility once the panels are made.
Construction Services is offering students new ways to get involved in the projects, Cocking said. The Department of Construction Services offered a student listening session on April 14, run by the president’s office, where students could ask questions and offer feedback.
They are also offering job site tours through the construction sites.
“We’ll invite students who want to come to walk through the job sites with us,” Cocking. “Kind of a guided tour, like, we know this is not all accessible during the work day for safety, but we do want you all to be able to interact with the space.”
Students will be able to sign up for the tours through student announcements.
In addition to the job site tours, Construction Services is working with the campus pastor’s office to organize prayer walks through the sites, Cocking said.
The prayer walks will give students a chance to pray over the future Gentile Hall and the future chapel, as well the construction crews working on the site, he said.
These prayer walks will be announced when more clarity about tour scheduling exists, Greg Dyson, vice president for spiritual life and intercultural leadership and campus pastor, said.
Construction Services is also launching an Instagram page, @tuconstructionservices, where his office will post content relating to the construction, allowing students to see behind the fence and stay informed on progress. The page will also feature announcements, such as road closures or other warnings, Kale Brown, student construction communication assistant, said.
“There’s only so much we can do with Student Announcements,” Brown, who runs the Instagram page, said. “I hope for the page to be a way for students to see what’s coming up, by accident, just because of how many students use Instagram.”
Brown encouraged students to get in touch with Construction Services if they had any questions, emphasizing that his role is to answer them.
Such communication, Cocking said, will allow students to stay informed about the changes being made to their campus.
“My hope is that there is a lot more information coming soon and a lot more regularly, that’s easy for students to find and get,” Cocking said. “I’m hoping, that through the Instagram, these other announcements and invites, that students feel that they have access to what’s going on.”
