One million dollars to renovate Stonehenge

2/14/08

By Ben Holbrook
Managing Editor

The poor conditions of the Stonehenge residence halls prompted LSC to spend $1,000,000 in order to renovate the buildings in an effort to make them more energy efficient and more accommodating to students.

The plans to renovate Stonehenge are still being planned out due to the fact that with limited resources, LSC can only focus on the most crucial renovations, Thomas Archer, Physical Plant Director said. Initially the school wanted to restructure the buildings entirely but soon realized that the money would not be sufficient for such a task, Archer said.

The most important renovation to the Stonehenge buildings would be to make them more energy efficient since the school burns roughly 220,000 gallons of oil each year, and spends around $40,000 a month for the electric bill. “All the dorms have heating controls which were installed in the past five years,” Archer said. “The boiler rooms were also insulated in order to keep the heat from traveling up into the dorm rooms which forced students to open their windows, which in turn triggered the boilers to produce more heat due to cold air flowing into the Arnold building.”

All of the windows in the Stonehenge buildings have been measured so that they can be replaced in the future which costs about $250,000 for all six buildings, Archer said. The lighting will also be changed to be more efficient in order to lower the electric bill.

Aesthetically, each building will have new carpeting, paint, and flooring in places where it is the worst, Archer said. Not all buildings can be completely renovated due to the limited funding.

A new RA office/on call room would also be a possible addition to the buildings although it is not guaranteed that such a change could be made, Archer said.

A large portion of the renovations that will be made were issues brought up by students, Archer said. “We have to listen to the students as to what their needs are in Stonehenge,” Archer said.

LSC received money from the state, which was then distributed for the new building in front of Vail, upgrading HAC, and to do the renovations in Stonehenge, Archer said. Right now in regards to the renovations, “We are in a budgeting phase,” Archer said.

To be able to completely restructure each Stonehenge building would be ideal although it would eat into the budget too quickly due to the fact that everything has to be up to code, which would include installing an elevator which costs about $300,000, Archer said.

Student input is appreciated so that the school has a better idea of what needs to be fixed and enables them to make each building more “user friendly,” Archer said.