The soon-to-be-built dorm will be the first major residence hall construction project for the university since Global Scholars Hall opened in 2012. It will include a common area, small auditorium, faculty offices, a scholar in residence apartment and flexible learning space. In contrast to other campus residence halls, the new dorm will not have a dining hall because its close proximity to the Global Scholars Hall will allow students to access that dining area instead, reported The Register-Guard.

The total project cost for the five-story, 140,000-square-foot project is estimated at $45 million, the UO Board of Trustees told The Register-Guard, which will be funded by revenue bonds sold by the university. It is the first project in the university’s residence hall capital plan, which includes extensively remodeling three existing dorms in phases over the next 12 years.

Once the new dorm is finished in fall 2017, the university will begin the cycle of renovations, completing half of a large residence hall at a time, Michael Griffel, UO director of housing, wrote The Register-Guard. Renovations will start with Bean Hall from 2017 to 2020, followed by Hamilton Hall from 2020 to 2023 and Walton Hall from 2025 to 2027. The new residence hall is necessary to house students during the renovation project, as dorm buildings will be unavailable during construction.

These dorm upgrades will cost the university at least $124 million over the next 12 years, according to project documents shared with the UO Board of Trustees. The school found that renovating the buildings would cost about 40 percent of the cost of building new, according to a residence hall study that the university conducted in 2011.
 

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A $1 million grant to the college from Knife River Corporation and MDU Construction Services Group, both headquartered in Bismarck, N.D., will help establish the MDU Resources Group Construction Safety Laboratory. The lab will replicate real-world jobsites and simulate worker activity to examine potential hazards.

Construction is a traditionally dangerous profession, placing workers at risk for falls, electrocution and other injuries. The new laboratory at OSU will be able to simulate some of these jobsite situations, helping to identify safer ways to work while also studying improved productivity and minimizing costs, according to a statement by the university. When complete, it will include an interactive, high-definition projection system through which university researchers will conduct sample work operations without actually putting workers at risk for injury. A connected driving simulator will help evaluate driver and worker actions as vehicles pass through a work zone.

“This lab establishes us as the principal national facility for construction and transportation safety research and education,” said Dean and Kearney Professor of Engineering at the OSU College of Engineering Scott Ashford, in a statement.
“We’re delighted to partner with Knife River and MDU Construction Services Group on this critically important project. These two companies are industry leaders in safety, and their commitment to our program will allow us to further advance processes and technologies that will help to better prevent workplace injuries.”

“This project provides a virtual environment where industry and academia can work together on real-world solutions,” added Jeff Thiede, president and CEO of MDU Construction Services Group, in a statement.

The project expands on an earlier OSU initiative to improve worker safety, emphasizing prevention through design. This approach prioritizes safety from the design stage to make buildings, bridges, roadways and other structures safer both to build and to maintain, according to a statement by the university.

“There’s a long history in the construction industry of architects and design engineers leaving construction safety up to the builder or contractor, saying it wasn’t really the designer’s concern,” said John Gambatese, an OSU professor of civil engineering, in a statement. “Some of this dates historically to the separation between owner, architect, contractor, maintenance and construction worker. There are also legal and liability issues. But there are many ways we can improve construction safety with this approach.”

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