INFRASTRUCTURE CWU obtains funding for new North Education Complex (NEC) Campus says goodbye to Language and Literature Building and Farrell Hall

Morgana Carroll News Editor

In April the government’s office approved funds to be put towards the new North Academic Complex, which will replace the Language and Literature Building and Farrell Hall, the early design stages of the new Psychology Building and the pre design stages for the new Art Education Complex.

According to President Jim Wohlpart, the largest request that CWU made this year was for $103.7 million to build a North Education Complex. The North Academic Complex, also known as the Humanities and Social Science Complex, will replace the Language and Literature building and Farrell Hall.

According to Chief of Staff Andrew Morse, every two years CWU evaluates the needs of campus and the student body. The Capital Planning and Projects (CPP) and the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) deliberate what changes and updates the campus needs. CPP is also responsible for sending the submission, with the approval of the ELT and the President.

Wohlpart said the reason that these buildings were chosen to be replaced was because of the structural state they are in.

“All these buildings are in pretty rough shape,” Wohlpart said. “To spend money trying to fix them would be throwing good money after bad. It just would not be a good choice.”

According to Wohlpart, these buildings have internal drain pipes that have begun to leak. The leaking has caused consistent water damage that has become expensive and tedious to repair.

Farrell Hall also doesn’t have a solid foundation and has sunk into the ground. The sinking has made the building crooked, causing some of the doors to not shut entirely.

Wohlpart said that the Language and Literature Building and Farrell Hall were built in the 1970s and therefore are not designed with energy efficiency in mind. The buildings are not currently complying with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) because they are made with brick and concrete interior walls. According to Wohlpart, tearing these buildings down would reduce energy consumption by 30% and save the university $80 million in repairs.

Wohlpart said the reason he thought it was so important to make a new building for the humanities and social sciences is because of how vital the programs are to the student experience.

“These two buildings teach a lot of our general education, so they really teach a lot,” Wohlpart said. “Most of our students go through our Humanities and Social Sciences program.”

The North Education Complex will be built north of the Language and Literature building, where all the international flags currently are. According to Wohlpart, the plan is to build a new plaza for the flags connected to the North Education Complex, and to save as many of the trees in that area as possible.

Wohlpart said the demolition of the Language and Literature building and Farrell Hall will not begin until after the building is built, so students in the human- ities and social science programs will still have a place to learn during construction.

Psychology and Art Education Complex plans

The second priority for CWU with the budget is the design for a new Psychology Building. The proposed budget has allocated $8.2 million into the design phase.

“We have a pretty good idea of what our Psychology Building will look like,” Wohlpart said. “We have a couple of potential sites.”

The two current options that Wohlpart mentioned are to either build the new building where the old one was before, or to put the new building where the Language and Literature building was.

Wohplart said that the primary reason for the replacement of the Psychology Building is to mitigate greenhouse gasses.

“What we really want to do is make sure that we’re reducing our carbon footprint in all of the buildings that we’re building,” Wohlpart said. “Some of the [old] buildings have a really bad carbon footprint.”

Another priority of CWU’s is to begin on the pre-design for the new Art Education Complex, which would replace Randall Hall and Michelson Hall. According to Wohlpart, the primary goal in the pre-design phase is figuring out where the building will go.

Wohlpart said the reason for a new art complex is due to poor accessibility.

“If you’re in Randall or Michaelson halls, if you want to go to the faculty offices you either have to go up a set of stairs or down a set of stairs,” Wohlpart said. “If you’re in a wheelchair or disabled in any kind of way, you’re not able to get to the faculty offices.”

CWU invests in geothermal heating and cooling

Morgana Carroll

News Editor

CWU has received funding from the state to invest in geothermal heating and cooling.

The Geo Eco Plant is a building that will utilize renewable geothermal energy to heat the new North Academic Complex (NAC) that will be located in the plaza with the nations’ flags.

The plant would go in the southwestern corner of the Dean Nicholson Pavilion lot, where there is currently a grassy patch.

According to Carlson, the plant is going to be designed as somewhere people can visit, and not just another utility building.

Carlson said the plant will have an interactive panel or tablet where people can learn about geothermal power and what it can be used for.

Carlson said they are designing the Geo Eco Plant to be able to connect to and support other buildings in the future, such as the proposed Art Complex and new Psychology Building.

How geothermal heating plants work

According to Carlson, the plant will use an open loops system. This means, the water that gets taken out of the wells will never touch anything other than the pipes it interacts with.

The water comes up from an aquifer(an underground water and mineral deposit), which Carlson said will be around 900 feet below ground, running through a pipe and then returning back into the ground.

“You’re either taking the heat that is in the water to heat a building, or you’re taking heat and putting it into what would be cooler water, and sending it back down,” Carlson said.

There will be two well locations; one will be under the Geo Eco Plant, and the other location has not been finalized yet. The current location they are considering is around the Wahle Apartments.

The environmental impact

According to Carlson, one benefit of the new Geo Eco Plant is that it uses renewable energy.

“That means we won’t be burning natural gas to heat or cool [the NAC],” Carlson said. “There will be some electricity that runs the pumps, pulls the water up and pumps it back down, but there will be no natural gas burned.”

To ensure the NAC doesn’t go without heat, Carlson said the system will be connected to the Central Steam Plant, which is currently used to heat the campus, in case something goes wrong at the Geo Eco Plant. The Central Steam Plant burns natural gas to heat buildings.

According to Carlson, the current hope of the university is that as new buildings get built and old buildings get renovated, they will be utilizing geothermal heating instead of using fossil fuels.

“If there’s anything we can do to reduce our carbon emissions, then that’s a step in the right direction,” Carlson said. “It is about the health of the community we live in.”

Carlson said that using geothermal instead of natural gas for most of the campus would be years, if not decades away.

To see prior reporting on the NAC go to: https://cwuobserver.com/24031/news/ ll-and-farrell-hall-to-possiblysee-new-construction-aftergov-inslees-proposed-budget/.