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Spring Issue 1
Feb. 22, 2019
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St. Louis Community College at Forest Park
Power outage shutters campus Substation fire cancels classes for a week
to be moved due to the temperature issues created by the power outage were moved or cared for so that they would not go bad. The Meramec campus helped to store some items … including a turtle from biology.” Campus reopened Tuesday, Feb. 19, but its electrical problems aren’t permanently fixed. By Joshua Phelps St. Louis Community College had to lease and Timothy Bold an external switch from a company in HousThe Scene staff ton to restore the power temporarily. It was It wasn’t your typical power outage. installed by Guarantee Electrical, a private Forest Park’s electrical substation caught contractor that worked with Ameren. fire on Monday, Feb. 11, closing campus for “We will start the process of designing a a week. new power substation for the campus, which “I heard from staff and students that there will take a long time,” said Paul Zinck, vice was a large boom that echoed across cam- chancellor of finance and administration for pus,” said Interim President Julie STLCC. Fickas. “I’m grateful everyone’s The college’s insurance comsafe and that Ameren UE, Guarpany deemed the old substation a antee, students and faculty showed “total loss,” he said. The cost of flexibility dealing with the whole damages and repairs still are being situation.” calculated. The vast majority of classes, Officials haven’t determined the meetings and other activities were cause of the fire. canceled. Food had to be salvaged “The wires and bars were melted in campus kitchens. Frozen pipes already, leaving no consequential burst above a computer lab and Fickas evidence,” said Joe Burns, project classroom on the third floor of D manager for Guarantee Electrical. Tower, leaking water onto computers and “I’m not sure if we’ll ever know exactly power sources. what the cause was,” said Dennis Dill, se“Some instructors were able to meet with nior manager of facilities for STLCC. “But students off-site,” Fickas wrote in the Forest we suspect it may have either been a cat or Park Weekly online newsletter for employ- a squirrel that got into the substation and ees. touched a couple of components inside.” “Budget hearings were conducted at Workers found evidence that an animal Harrison Center … and items that needed had been living in the substation, Dill said,
Photo illustration by Paul Zinck via Google
Circled in red is Forest Park’s electrical substation, which caught fire on Feb. 11, east of the staff parking lot. adding, “There was nothing left of the animal.”
Loud noise, flickering lights
Forest Park’s substation is across the road from the staff parking lot on the east side of campus, in the vicinity of the Art Annex. It stopped working in the early evening Feb. 11. Housekeeper Tiffany Beasley was emptying trash in the basement by the campus loading dock at the time. “I heard a loud pop — BOOM!” she said. “I contacted my supervisor immediately on
my walkie-talkie.” Computer lab Supervisor Melih Guzel was in the computer lab on the third floor of D Tower when the power went out. “All the lights and computers started flickering, and the whole room went dark,” he said. “I went around to see if anybody else was in the classrooms next door.” The college’s emergency backup generators kicked in long enough for police to evacuate buildings.
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New health building to open this fall
A and B towers are slated for demolition By Joshua Phelps The Scene staff
Construction is moving along on the new $39 million Nursing and Health Sciences Building at Forest Park, and the contractor expects work to be completed in July. That means St. Louis Community College students in health-related fields will be taking classes in the building this fall. “We’re real excited about it,” said nursing professor Lisa Moreland. “Our students have needed some new, updated laboratory space and simulation space for quite a while.” No more classes will be held in A and B towers after spring semester, according to Paul Zinck, vice chancellor of finance and administration for STLCC. Those in non-health-related subjects will be redistributed around campus. Zinck said the college plans to demolish the two four-story brick towers by late 2020. “What should happen next fall is we will begin the process of salvage,” he said. “So we’ll try to take anything out of the buildings that we can reutilize elsewhere, and
KAI Design & Build
An artist’s rendering of a cross section of the new Nursing and Health Sciences Building’s lobbies. then we will start the process of abatement of materials that need to be abated from the building.” The 96,000-square-foot Nursing and Health Sciences Building will be four stories, mostly glass with brick accents. It’s being built north of A Tower and west of the physical education building. The new building will house modern classrooms, laboratories and offices for
nursing, dental hygiene and eight other health-related programs. “The first floor will have the dental hygiene program and the dental clinic,” Zinck said. “The second floor will have much of the nursing program, so that will include a nursing skills lab. It’ll also have the respiratory care program from Forest Park.” The second and third floors will provide space for general classrooms and comput-
er labs. The surgical technology, radiology support and EMT paramedic programs will be headquartered on the third floor. The college’s original plan included office space for STLCC Chancellor Jeff Pittman and other district employees on the fourth floor, but that has changed. “Floors one through three will be completely finished, and then the fourth floor will just have unfinished space for development at a later time,” Zinck said. The college will stay within the $39 million budget originally planned for the project, he added. The Nursing and Health Sciences Building is being constructed by Tarlton Corp., a private contractor based in St. Louis. Senior Project Manager Andrew Nelch expects it to be completed by July 15. “Right now, on the outside of the building, we’re working on installing glass,” he said. “We’re working on closing all the storm-front windows, and we have another shipment of glass for the two elevations that won’t come until the beginning of April.” Workers also are preparing to install steel panels in between glass on the outside. Inside, the company is making progress with drywall and taping on the first, second and third floors, Nelch said. Painting is un-
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