Gilbane breaks ground on $84M Massachusetts college modernization

Windfall, Rhode Island-based Gilbane Constructing Co. broke floor on Salem State College’s BOLD challenge, a campus unification and modernization effort that may transfer the school’s South Campus-housed packages to its North Campus, in accordance with an April 23 news release from the varsity. The challenge will cost $84 million, in accordance with the Gloucester Day by day Occasions.

Gilbane will renovate the present Horace Mann constructing on Loring Avenue and develop Meier Corridor on Lafayette Avenue to carry new lab areas to packages housed within the constructing, in accordance with the information launch. As soon as full, it’ll enable the Salem, Massachusetts, college to facilitate the state’s deliberate sale of its South Campus.

The Horace Mann constructing, vacant since 2018, will develop into a state-of-the-art facility for almost all of the Maguire Meservey Faculty of Well being and Human Companies. It should function nursing simulation suites, bedside expertise and occupational remedy labs, scholar hubs and versatile lecture rooms, per the discharge. Crews may even replace the constructing with a newly created accessible campus-facing entrance.

The Meier Corridor addition will embrace seven high-intensity instructing labs and assist areas for Salem State. It should present modernized lab area for a number of packages, together with biology, chemistry and geological sciences.

Along with the renovation and addition initiatives, Gilbane may even oversee the decarbonization of the North Campus via the development of a geothermal wellfield beneath the college parking behind Meier Corridor, in accordance with a news release from the contractor. As soon as accomplished, the system of about 100 wells will assist warmth and funky each the Meier Corridor enlargement and the Horace Mann constructing, in addition to enhance the heating and cooling of the Berry Library. 

As a part of this effort, connections between different buildings and the wells can be put in in preparation for the challenge’s second part, which can carry 4 extra buildings on North Campus into this method.

All three development initiatives will run concurrently, although their begins can be staggered because of the preliminary blasting for the Meier Corridor addition. 

The work on Horace Mann is beginning this spring, whereas work on Meier Corridor and the decarbonization challenge will launch through the summer time, in accordance with the SSU launch. All three are slated to be completed by the summer time of 2027.