Construction Milestone! North Quad Finalized, Reopened

This week, after months of hard work, Big Shift construction crews wrapped up construction on North Quad—one of the first sections of construction that kicked off the Big Shift in May of this year.

Construction on North Quad proved to be a big, difficult and complicated undertaking, which is one of the reasons it was the first area where Big Shift crews broke ground.

“With the campus being closed at the onset of COVID-19, we had a unique opportunity to work unimpeded in areas that in normal times would be buzzing with student life at the top of every hour,” Big Shift Project Manager Dan Golde explained.

The Big Shift project team adjusted the construction schedule accordingly to begin with “the most challenging and busiest stretches”—North Quad and East Quad. One of the complications posed by North Quad was the maze of existing pipes, crews had to navigate. Another was the amount of active construction area happening at the same time between North Quad and East Quad.

“It proved to be a lot of ground to cover, at one point, we had over 1600 feet of trench opened simultaneously,” Golde said. Now, what remains of that open trenching on East Quad is being backfilled, with construction on track to finish in November.

“While it was a good approach given the unique circumstances, it is great to have construction in these sensitive areas nearly done and behind us and to move forward in a more manageable inch-by-inch fashion,” Golde said.

One Big Shift crew is currently working down California Avenue, maintaining a “much more manageable length of open trench,” while the other two crews are installing lateral pipe runs to buildings. Keep track of construction progress on the Construction Schedule and Progress page.