Wheels were put in motion Tuesday for Allen Community College to eventually replace the heart of its aging climate control systems.
College trustees approved spending up to $500,000 for architects and engineers to map out how to replace the existing two-pipe water delivery system with a more flexible four-pipe system.
Matthew Gleason, vice president for finance and operations, said the college has been huddling all along with representatives of Architect One, Basis Consulting Engineers and Simpson Construction Services after those firms authored a top-to-bottom facilities study earlier this year.
The study spelled out roughly $15 million worth of potential maintenance and construction projects across the main campus building and Allen’s dorms and satellite facilities.
Since the trustees’ Nov. 11 meeting, the focus has been exclusively on the HVAC conundrum — how to replace the entire system in the main building, including the library and gymnasium — without disrupting classes from August to May.
The firms provided three options, Gleason said, the first two of which were immediately disregarded because they could not be done solely in the summer months, and would have displaced roughly one-third of the classrooms while the work was ongoing.
“You can’t be doing work where it’s 50 degrees in one room and 100 in another and expect students and staff to want to stick around,” Gleason said.
The third, and only, viable option would be to spread out the work over multiple summers, and done so in a manner that the HVAC system will still be operational in the interim.
Because the engineering for such a project will take as much as six months lead time, it means work will not begin until 2027, and then continue in the summers of 2028 and 2029, he continued.
“They figured the fastest they could do it, and still ensure good quality work would be three summers,” Gleason said.
Gleason also braced the trustees for the anticipated price tag for the work — about $8 million.
The firms’ cost to engineer the project was pegged at $450,000, although Gleason encouraged trustees to tack on $50,000 in case structural engineering services are needed. After all, removing the old two-pipe system will likely require cutting into concrete, he noted.
Trustees unanimously approved Gleason’s request. Funds will come out of the college’s reserve fund.
With the replacement project expected to take three years, it will allow the college to spread out the price tag as well, Gleason noted.
