(Maryville) — Work is underway on a major infrastructure upgrade at Northwest Missouri State University.
Last year, the Northwest Missouri Board of Regents backed a $105 million capital project to modernize the university’s infrastructure. Northwest Missouri State President Dr. Lance Tatum says the improvements are the largest single-capital project in the school’s history. Tatum is entering his second year at the helm of the university. He tells KMA News that work on the project’s first phase began over the summer.
“Northwest is 119 years old and increasingly our systems here at the university have aged,” said Tatum. “So what we’ve done is taken on the responsibility of upgrading and modernizing our central plant so that our steam system, water, and heating systems will be modernized so that we can provide HVAC and hot water to our dormitories and other parts on the campus in a decentralized manner.”
Tatum says the decentralized system would allow crews to better mitigate issues without shutting down the entire system. He says work is underway on the several miles of piping under the university and advises students and others on campus to be aware of the construction.
“I’ve been apologizing to groups that have been coming on campus over the summer, because if you’ve been in Maryville and been on campus, most of it is dug up and we have holes all over the place and trenches across roads,” he said. “In fact, coming back from the Gaunt House to my office for lunch I had to make a detour out around campus because one of the roads had been closed (Monday) morning so they could get some of the work done that they needed to do.”
Tatum says the hope is to complete the first phase of the project in the early fall. He says a second phase will begin in the latter parts of next spring.
“So, next summer we’ll be dug up around campus again, but that will get us through a significant part of the project,” Tatum explained. “The final phase, phase three, will be much more to the inside of the buildings.”
Tatum says the ultimate goal is to ensure the university can deliver more reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective heating and cooling to campus facilities.
“We don’t want dormitories to be without air conditioning or without heat because we have not done what we need to do to replace aging HVAC systems,” said Tatum. “That’s part of it–just to make the college experience as seamless, smooth, and enjoyable as possible for not only the people who work here at Northwest, but also the students.”
University officials expect the entire project to take two to three years to complete. For more information about the project and the current closures, visit nwmissouri.edu/alert/infrastructure.