Facilities Management

On Monday, December 12, 2022, steam and hot water will be briefly shut off for the majority of campus in order to repair a steam line in Si Melby Hall. The shutoff will begin at 8:00 a.m. Service will be restored when the repair is completed, no later than 10:00 a.m. Hagfors Center, Luther Hall, and Oren Gateway Center will not be affected. 

Leaves are falling, birds are flying south, and it’s dark by 5:15 p.m. But the surest sign of winter arrives this week: Augsburg’s dome is going up. 

Last week, athletic facilities staff undertook the multi-day process to convert Edor Nelson Field for winter use, taking down field pads, wind screens, goal posts, and the front section of the bleachers to be stored off-site until spring. 

On Monday, the dome will arrive in five pieces on flatbed trucks. Street parking on Butler will not be available through Monday as cranes offload the dome sections. Working with Augsburg facilities maintenance staff, installation crews from the manufacturer Yeadon will roll out each section on the field, secure the connections between them, and attach the dome doors. 

After three days of prep and assembly, inflation only takes about three hours. Working around snow delays, the dome should be inflated later this week and open for use by Augsburg athletic teams, local leagues, and community members the week of November 21.

The time has come to retrieve any remaining items that were left behind in Memorial Hall or Science Hall offices when Hagfors Center opened.

While the majority of moves were completed at the time, a few offices still contain books, equipment, and other objects belonging to their former occupants. Facilities will begin cleaning out and repurposing all spaces in these areas:

• Third floor of Memorial Hall
• Top two floors of Science Hall

If you want to retrieve anything that got left behind in the move to Hagfors, please do so by November 4, 2022. Contact DPS if you need help accessing an old office space. 

As the start of the fall semester approaches, facilities, custodial, and maintenance staff are in full swing choreographing physical space needs on campus. Residence hall room turnovers are nearly complete as we transition between summer occupancy and fall move-in. Several office moves are also in progress, including updates to suite 23 in Anderson Hall lower level to house the Minnesota Urban Debate League team and an expansion of the Human Resources team into adjacent offices on the first floor of Memorial Hall. Electrical work in Christensen Center will begin soon to support new monitors in the Einstein Bagels space.

On the other side of campus, the lights will shine more brightly over Edor Nelson Field during evening athletic contests after a recent replacement. A new sound bar will follow later in the fall. Demo and construction have also begun on a project to expand the airlock entry for the athletic dome, which will facilitate entry for larger lifts to hang interior lights.

In a fitting upgrade for the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the women’s locker room remodel in Si Melby Hall should be completed by the beginning of the academic year. The renovation includes much-needed improvements to the shower and toilet facilities, and each of Augsburg’s 12 women’s teams will have their own year-round team room going forward. The women’s locker room was constructed in 1979 in what was formerly a dirt-floor batting cage known as “the pit.” Prior to that time, the women’s teams used the men’s visiting team locker room. (Learn more and check out throwback images in Lindell Library’s women’s athletic archive.)

On the sustainability front, the extensive project to install LED light bulbs and fixtures across campus is also nearing completion. These minor-seeming changes make a big difference. Along with upgrades to our HVAC equipment, improvements in energy efficiency mean that we will consume less electricity than we purchase from our solar partners going forward. We expect to receive annual refunds from Xcel Energy as a result. These anticipated refunds will not only cover the cost of the lighting and HVAC upgrades themselves—they’ll also pay for the new dome and turf on the athletic field.

Preparations are underway for five and a half weeks of camps and conferences this summer, kicking off the week of June 13 with wrestling camps and SOAR. Getting ready to welcome summer guests to the residence halls is a team effort across departments. Custodial and maintenance staff clean and fix up rooms after spring move-out, prepare spaces for summer residents, and stock cleaning supplies in Urness and Anderson. Residence Life and DPS staff organize keys and fobs. University Events staff collaborate with all these teams, prepare welcome kits, distribute keys and fobs to campers, and partner with Facilities to train student workers on OSHA regulations as part of their hospitality role for summer events.

Elsewhere on campus, new artificial turf has been unveiled on Edor Nelson Field following a five-week replacement project. With year-round availability thanks to the dome, the field is one of the most heavily used turf surfaces in the metro area. The new turf will benefit the five teams that share the field (football, softball, women’s lacrosse, and men’s and women’s soccer); Health, Physical Education, and Exercise Science classes; and community members and groups like the semi-pro Minneapolis City SC, who inaugurated the new surface last week. Notice a lot of bulging bags in Lot L during the project? Athletics partnered with FieldTurf to reuse the infill and rubber foam from the previous installation in 2013, which lowered the environmental impact of the replacement.

The transition from heating to cooling in campus buildings continues this week.

Buildings on campus are being transitioned from heating to cooling starting May 9. Facilities Management plans to complete the transition by the end of the week.

Athletic Field Turf Replacement

On May 9, Augsburg will begin replacing turf on the Athletic Field. Parking will not be affected by this project.

The tile work in the lower level of Christensen will begin at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, May 2. Access through the hallway space may be limited during this time.

Also beginning on Monday, May 2, the second phase of the renovation in Si Melby Hall will begin, primarily affecting the women’s locker room areas.

The tiles needed for repair to the Christensen Center lower level hallway are on order. The date for repair completion is unknown. The affected tunnel area has been reopened.