Command Outpost

You may have noticed that there was no blog post last Friday, the usual blog release date. This was due to the fact that many Grebel employees were office shuffling that day (see the Front Office's "command outpost" below). The construction crew is taking advantage of the Christmas shut down to do some work in the office wing, and they started on Monday. Since this work involves asbestos abatement and building a new fire separation wall along the north end of the Front Office and President's Office, it is understandable that the people in those offices would need to vacate. However, about half of the office wing has also had to vacate, due to there only being one fire exit. The rule is that, if there is only one fire exit, you must be within 45 feet of it. Hence many faculty and staff are either taking vacation time, working from home, or they have temporarily relocated. Those of us still in the building feel like we're camping!

In other news, the crew working outside is making good progress. The steel beams across the level 2 walls are up, and there are even columns in place that will go all the way up to level 4!

 Here is a welder working on the base of one of the tall columns:

And finally, you can start to get a feel for the lay of the land as it will be when completed. They've done some major regrading outside, and you can see the slope leading up to what will be the new main entrance on the south side of level 2. Levels 3 and 4 will overhang to the point of the white columns, and the entrance will be below that.